Til Death Do Us Part
by dcdreamin
Summary: After Zach and Cam return from the Gallagher reunion in the epilogue of United We Spy, Cam has to face her fear of commitment, while also facing down a dangerous enemy. A multi-part, adult Zammie adventure, with many of your favorite characters. Rated T for implied sexual content and mild violent themes (basic spy stuff).
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I do not own any of these characters or the Gallagher Girls books.**

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We hadn't left things well. That was the thought that flashed through my mind as I rappelled between two buildings in the Dominican Republic, then grabbed a knife from the secret pocket in my knee high boots, severed the cord I'd just crossed, and continued running without missing a beat. We hadn't left things well, and I couldn't wait to get home.

I leaped the 2 foot gap to the next roof and paused for a moment behind a small chimney. I could hear them. They were still following, and I didn't have much time to lose them and catch my ride. The disk in my pocket, containing a cloned exchange algorithm this particular group of arms traders relied on, weighed heavily on my mind. But not as heavily as that last conversation.

The only way to fix that was to get off of this roof and back to Chicago. Back to Zach. I listened. They were closer now. I rolled sideways and hung myself off the edge of the roof by my fingertips, hoping they'd take a quick glance at the roof I'd just been hiding on and continue along into the night. Based on the pace I'd set, I should be at least two roofs further on than I was.

It worked. The three enemy operatives stooped behind the small chimney, took one glance, and proceeded on. No one noticed my fingertips clinging to a ledge in the shadows. But surely they saw the helicopter circling, looking for me, and knew their time was limited. I held my body on the edge of the roof another two minutes, until I was sure they couldn't beat the chopper to my location. Then I hauled myself back onto the roof and activated my pickup signal. As I climbed into the chopper, I caught a glimpse of the enemy agents turning and raising their weapons, even as they realized they'd already lost.

It hadn't been that bad. Surely I'd worked it up in my head to be more of a fight than it actually was. I had said yes, after all. Zach had asked me to marry him, in front of our families and all my friends, and I had said yes. And then I'd said not yet.

I hadn't meant it to be a rebuke. I knew we were 28. I knew we'd spent roughly the last ten years of our lives together. I knew I'd never meet another person who understood me the way Zach did. Who'd lived my scars alongside me. Who'd fought for me every step of the way. But I couldn't deny I had misgivings.

I love Zach. I've loved Zach for a long time. But loving Zach is difficult. Loving any spy is difficult. You're never 100% sure who you'll get on any given day. And even though Zach has proven his loyalty to me time and time again, even though I've trusted Zach with my life in the field, and with most of my deepest secrets, the idea of committing to trust someone else for my entire life is unnerving. And take that from a woman who spent her senior year of high school fighting the Circle of Cavan.

And while the average life expectancy of a spy is, admittedly, significantly shorter than that of the average person, it wasn't crazy to wait. We were only 28. There was time yet. So, that night, while we were curled up together, almost asleep, I whispered five words that changed everything.

"Zach, why don't we wait?"

He pulled away and turned to look at me. "Cold feet, Gallagher Girl?" he asked, in his usual light manner, only his eyes betraying his concern.

"Just for a little while. We're still young. And I know that we've known each other for a long time. And you know how much I love you. But it just feels rushed. I just think it would be better to wait."

He didn't move, but I swear it was like he had gone to stand across the room. Across the City. Practically in Indiana. His eyebrows crinkled just a fraction, and I could see him recede, see him put on the front he'd finally learned to drop around me.

"If that's what you want, Gallagher Girl," he said coolly, making it clear that he disapproved of this course of action. I could have let it go, but I didn't. Instead, I stood my ground and said firmly, "it is."

I could have said a lot of things in that moment to lessen the sting of my words. I could have chosen to delay this conversation until a different night. A night that wasn't going to be interrupted before dawn, when I left for a solo mission in the Dominican Republic. But I didn't. Instead I rolled over and went to sleep, and Zach didn't break the silence.

I rose earlier than necessary and gathered my gear before the light even began creeping over the horizon. I gently placed my new engagement ring on the nightstand and turned to grab my bag. His arms wrapped around my waist from behind, and he gently pulled me to him.

"You know I can't wear it when I'm working," I murmured, glancing over my shoulder at the ring on the nightstand.

"I know. Be vigilant out there, Gallagher Girl," he said. We had coined the phrase many years before, when we realized that "be safe" would always be an unrealistic charge. And then he kissed me, but it was all wrong. The movements were the same, certainly, the dance of our lips and tongues well-rehearsed and known by heart, but the passion was missing. Zach always kissed me like his heart was on fire. Like every kiss could be the last one.

But that morning he didn't. Instead he kissed me like a normal man might have. Like he didn't know the odds of me walking back through the door were about fifty-seven percent.

It was all wrong. And I left anyway.

I stared out the window of the chopper the entire ride home, knowing I should be using my time to catch up on paperwork, or sleep, or at least chug some orange juice from the provisions refrigerator. Instead I counted exactly how many seconds would pass before I could see Zach again. Before I could walk back through our door and make everything right.

* * *

 **AN: Hi, everyone, I'm back! I got this lovely comment on another story about how I'd probably graduated college and was long gone, and how it was a shame that I didn't have more stories. Well, no longer. I mean, I did graduate, and I have moved on quite a bit. But sometimes you get the creative writing bug again. So here I am, with adult Zammie for your entertainment. Read and Review please :)**


	2. Chapter 2

He wasn't there. I knew it was foolish of me to expect him to be waiting, but I was hopeful anyway. I'd been out of communication for two weeks. He'd gone about his life like normal, the same way I did when he was away.

I quickly swept the apartment for bugs, noting that the majority of Zach's clothes hung neatly in the closet. If he'd gone away, it wouldn't be for long. I sat down on edge of our perfectly made bed and checked our dead letter email accounts. No indication that he'd been called out on an overlapping mission. I would just have to be patient.

The only apparent difference in our loft was my notable absence. Everything was perfectly neat, clean, and in its place. Every towel folded, every hospital corner tucked, every surface wiped totally clean. The loft never looked this way unless I'd been gone - Zach's years of prison school training may have been reduced to instinct, but I was a grade A slob (I blame Bex for my habits). Our furniture was bland and sparse and modern, clean surfaces where you could easily notice signs of an intruder's presence. Clean surfaces you could fully wipe and abandon in approximately 2.2 minutes, without anyone knowing you were ever there.

I considered for a moment that he could have left me, but the thought was fleeting. Most likely he was sitting in on an intelligence briefing, checking in with an asset, debriefing a local mission - there were plenty of harmless possibilities. Not knowing the other's location was par for the course in our relationship, and it came with the territory.

He walked through the door 18 and a half minutes later, while I was sitting at the kitchen island filling out post-mission paperwork. He came bearing my favorite pizza, from the greasy spoon near the art museum, and even though it was 9:22 am, I immediately dug in.

"Welcome back, Gallagher Girl," he smiled, as he kissed the top of my head. "No one eats pizza for breakfast like you do."

"Well, I have been up all night, so it isn't really breakfast." If he was still mad at me, he'd spent the last two weeks figuring out how to hide it. I felt guilty nonetheless.

He didn't ask how my mission went. I was home, unharmed, and filling out paperwork in our kitchen. If things had gone poorly, I'd have been laid up in a secure wing of the hospital, being debriefed in person at the field office, or dead. Instead he grabbed a slice and plopped down next to me.

"This is still gross" he offered, but he ate the slice anyway. His eyes flicked to the ring on my left hand, which I'd immediately replaced on the appropriate finger when I got home. It had been in the exact same spot where I'd left it, frozen in time, on the nightstand. His face didn't change.

"Plans for today?" I asked, knowing I'd almost surely get a partial answer.

"Actually, new assignment. A joint one." He grinned slyly at me. "Just like old times Gallagher Girl."

He slid a photograph of a beautiful young Eastern-European woman toward me. I laughed. Usually if Zach's missions involved beautiful and/or dangerous women, they did not also involve me.

"Meet your newest classmate. Elisa Sokolov."

"Only daughter of Russia's top nuclear scientist," I answered. "She's a PhD student?"

He nodded. My legend had been a student for a long time. In my line of work, primarily reconnaissance, repossession, really any mission where someone needed to be invisible, being a student gave me flexibility. It also gave me an excuse to be anywhere, at any time. At 28, I was currently getting a PhD in applied mathematics at the University of Chicago. At least that's what the provost thought. Mostly, I was traveling to distant places, doing dangerous things, and letting the CIA pay my legend's tuition.

"My asset says she's in danger." Zach was the relationships man. The asset-developer. The one who could always talk his way out of a tough spot. He always had been, from the very beginning. He was also the man you called when you needed someone untouchable. Free of corruption. Unwilling to barter his conscience for his life. Zach had stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it at sixteen. Zach was never going back.

"Protective detail?" I groaned. "You know I can be weak in countersurveillance. Don't you remember DC?"

"How could I ever forget," he laughed. "First time I ever out-spied an infamous Gallagher Girl."

"The last time too," I quipped.

"Look, I already called it in," he stated, noting my obvious discomfort with the assignment. "This is important and we're the best team available. Macey's out of the business for now, and Abby's out too. Bex just started a deep cover op. Townsend said it had to be us." _He doesn't trust anyone else_. The subtext in Zach's statement was crystal clear, and I knew better than to protest. If Townsend didn't trust anyone outside of our circle, this had to be important. Besides, I'd learned a lot in the last twelve years about countersurveillance. After all, I was still alive. That was something.

From the way Zach spoke about the former MI6 legend Edward Townsend, now a U.S. Citizen, flag-wearing, Director of the Clandestine Services, you'd never guess he was Zach's father, or my Aunt Abby's husband.

"Alright," I sighed, getting off my stool. "Then straight back to work it is."

"It can wait until tomorrow," Zach murmured, as he slid his arms around my waist. I didn't argue as he cradled my face in his hands and gently kissed me. I could already feel the fire burning between us. Everything was, seemingly, as it should be. Our conversation before my trip was completely forgotten.

The spy in me just wasn't quite convinced.


	3. Chapter 3

I felt at ease as I wandered the campus again, invisible, doing recon on Elisa. Zach and I had debated a strategy late into the night. Someone would have to get close to the target. Someone would have to gain Elisa's trust, earn a place in Elisa's life, without her ever learning of the danger that followed her. We both knew it would have to be me.

I wasn't comfortable at all with that part. It was a Zach-style mission. A Macey-style mission. It wasn't a mission for a woman who had always prided herself on being invisible. But Zach wouldn't fit into our higher learning environment this time. He wouldn't know that the girl under the big oak studied anthropology and called herself "Terra," even though her given name was Alice. He wouldn't know that the nervous looking middle-aged man near the science building was Alfred, a former navy officer who'd barely been outside his lab in four and half years.

I was the Chameleon. I knew everyone, but no one knew me. And no one else knew this campus the way that I did, so I went to work.

Elisa was quiet and reserved, especially for a girl who could have almost rivaled Macey with her looks. Instead, she did her best to blend in. Her long blond hair was mashed into a ponytail, and she wore a seriously out of date sweater, with corduroy pants that shortened her long legs. She didn't look like she'd attended the most elite boarding school in Eastern Europe. She looked like she was at the University of Chicago to study. Intently.

She walked alone the entire day, as I slid around the quad, toting my own books, monitoring her class schedule, who she spoke with, where she studied, what she ate for lunch. Elisa was a loner. Elisa was a lot like me. This was going to be harder than I'd thought.

By late afternoon, I'd guessed at her routine and made a plan. As she strolled across the quad, I carefully picked all the pens from her bag. It was difficult on a moving target, but I had a lot of practice "borrowing" Macey's illegal makeup, and ten years of practice swiping things from dangerous people who didn't want me to have them. I once stole a microchip from the back of a goat's throat in Istanbul, after he almost devoured the dang thing. This I could handle.

When Elisa stopped to study, I was sitting at her favorite table outside the PhD lounge. She looked mildly annoyed, but sat on the closest bench instead. As she cracked a book and frantically searched for a pen, I studied her. Then I leaned over and slid one of my own pens across into her hand.

"Thanks, I had so many but now I can't find a single pen." _I know_ , I thought. _12 to be exact. And none of them were even weapons disguised as pens. Where's the fun in that?_

"No trouble," I smiled, then spread open my own book. I'd yet to encounter a subject at the University of Chicago that I hadn't mastered at Gallagher, but being ahead on homework sure comes in handy when you needed to skip school for two weeks and steal an algorithm from the Dominican Republic, let me tell you.

I waited for Elisa to ask to join me. And I waited some more. She didn't. Instead she studied for an hour, gave me back my pen, and left.

I followed her to her apartment, two blocks off campus, in a quiet third floor walk-up. Then I staked out the building from a coffee shop across the street. I was nothing if not thorough (and thirsty). She didn't leave. Not once. For the entire night.

"Definitely a loner," I reported to Zach when I reached our apartment around two a.m. Not even spies like to be out past two a.m. if they can help it, so I figured it was safe to go home. "I've laid some tenuous friendship groundwork, but short of a snatch exfiltration a la Boston, I'm not sure how anyone would even get close enough to kidnap her. We are talking a ransom situation, right? For leverage?"

He nodded. "As usual, you underestimate the power of a good Honeypot." I laughed. Zach's charming grin and rugged physique meant he'd been involved in a number of similar classified situations that I tried not to think about. "Those quiet, reserved girls can be good targets. You get in close, make her laugh, feel understood, and she'll let you right in."

I glared. "I hope you don't think that's what happened with us."

Zach laughed. An actual honest laugh. Then he kissed the top of my head and pulled the leftover Chinese food out of the fridge. "Cam," he offered, in a rare, earnest tone. "I have loved you since that first day you beat me up in the P&E barn. If anyone is the Honeypot in this relationship it's you. One look at you in that red dress and my teenage heart was yours."

I thought about a ball and a long red dress and an underwear situation and a code black that I'm still not totally over and I laughed too.

"I never did get that bra back."

"The 8th graders thought it was Macey's."

It was strange, I thought, to have traveled so many chapters of your life with one person. To have one person know you so truly. For anyone, it would be strange. For a spy, it was madness. The ultimate liability.

Zach stopped laughing. "It's exactly what I'd do," he offered, clearly still considering the Honeypot theory.

I rolled my eyes.

"You're a little jealous, aren't you Gallagher Girl," he teased, ruffling my hair.

"Of course not." I rolled my eyes again. "It's a just a job. Angelina Jolie doesn't get angry when Brad Pitt has to kiss someone else. This is no different."

"They're divorced now." Zach quipped. "Bad example."

"Well, Tina Walters, thank you for the update," I teased.

"You should really keep up on your pop culture, you're going to blow that college-girl legend of yours if you aren't careful." He kissed my shoulder lightly. Then he sighed.

"No one but you, Gallagher Girl," he whispered into my hair. "No one ever but you."

His tone left no room for doubt, and even if it had, the kiss that followed would have erased it.

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 **Thanks for joining me for chapter 3! I've got some really good Zammie moments and an exciting spy plot coming up for you all, so stay tuned :)**


	4. Chapter 4

I sat at Elisa's table the next day too. Of course I arrived five minutes before she did. She sighed as she approached, rolled her eyes and sat on the next bench over.

"Hi," I offered. "Are you new here? I don't think we've met." _Not really a lie._

"Relatively." She answered, her tone guarded.

"I'm Cammie. You can join me if you want." She considered for a moment, then grudgingly set her bag down across from me.

"Elisa. This table is usually empty."

"No, I always study here. It's my favorite spot!" _Lie._ She grunted, and pulled out a book. "I have been away for a few weeks though," I conceded. _Not a lie._ "Thesis research." _Lie._

No response. Maybe I was just going to have to force my friendship on this woman the same way Liz and Bex had forced their friendship on me so many years ago. The same way the three of us had forced our friendship on Macey. That had actually worked out pretty well for all of us. I gave it a try.

"What do you study?" She flipped her book closed, so I could see the title. "Macroeconomics!" I exclaimed, briefly considering the possibility that someone was after Elisa for her own knowledge. "Cool. I'm Applied Mathematics. I know it sounds boring, but my thesis is on implications for advanced cryptology." _Not a lie_. She glanced up. "I really like codes," I added. _Also not a lie._

We both returned to our books then, but I kept a close watch. I noted her focus as she read, the tiny, perfect cursive she used to make her notes. We worked for an hour or so before I let her catch me watching. She raised her eyebrows accusingly.

"You went to a top boarding school, didn't you?" I asked. Her eyebrows went higher. "Your handwriting," I said. Then I lifted my notebook to reveal the matching, tiny perfect cursive I'd been imitating over her shoulder. "No one else writes this way. It's totally impractical in the real world. But I've been doing it so long I don't know how to stop." _Lie._ I'd stayed up late the night before, copying Elisa's handwriting from a to-do list I'd swiped from her bag. Gillian Gallagher had, for the most part, had more important things to teach her students than penmanship (although coded calligraphy _was_ part of the Gallagher curriculum).

She laughed. "Me either."

"I miss it sometimes," I offered. "I always had kind of a built in family at school." _Not a lie._ "Sometimes I get lonely here." _Also not a lie_.

I missed my friends. They had scattered to the ends of the Earth, and I rarely ever heard from them. I got the occasional dead letter email drop, but they were always cryptic, always guarded. For their safety and for mine. Most of the time, I didn't even know where they were. Just rumors. Whispers that floated around the field office. Nothing real, nothing concrete. Only bad news was ever shared in full. It was an occupational hazard, I knew, but it wasn't enough.

Of course I had Zach. I'd always had Zach. But our missions often had us passing like ships in the night. And we spoke half-truths to each other as well. Many of our assignments were too sensitive to share, even in the privacy of our bug-swept loft. This life was fine, but I missed Gallagher. I missed when things were simple.

"Maybe we should grab a bite to eat sometime," I offered. "I think we'd have a lot in common." For a moment, I worried that I might be starting to like Elisa too much.

Elisa nodded in response. Then we went on our separate ways, presumably to class. I didn't actually go to class. Instead, I checked my dead letter email accounts, hoping for some word from my friends that might ease my homesickness.

Surprisingly, I wasn't disappointed. A cryptic note from Liz told me she'd be in Chicago in three weeks. I didn't know where, and I didn't know why, but I did know that Elizabeth Sutton would somehow manage to find me, one Chameleon in this city of 2.7 million people. And that was comforting.

That evening, Zach and I strolled through Grant Park, taking advantage of one of the last mild nights before the summer weather truly set in. Soon there would be nightly thunderstorms, and hot humid days. Not like Virginia, or Saudi Arabia, but unpleasant all the same.

Zach was quiet. Not unusually so, but I'd known him long enough to tell his comfortable silence from his restless silence. We were definitely in restless silence territory as we strolled around the plaza, taking in the crowds of tourists and families.

"The woman with the baby carriage," I noted. "I've seen her before."

"We're not the only operatives in Chicago," Zach responded calmly. "I'm sure she's thinking the same thing."

He was right, of course. Part of the reason we routinely strolled Grant Park was to look for other operatives. To monitor any newcomers who had wandered into our underground community.

Grant Park was an ever popular location for clandestine meetings. Almost everyone was a stranger to everyone else. Tourists blended with locals, everyone was wrapped up in their own days. The foot traffic was good, the police coverage relatively light. No one was looking. Except for us of course. Only someone who'd been posted here for some time would realize the park was often crawling with operatives.

"The man with the ponytail, though," Zach said quietly, and I glanced at the man in my peripheral vision. "Is new."

"And suspicious," I added. Zach nodded. The man had an umbrella, even though there had been no rain in the forecast. He'd also been reading the same page of his newspaper the last time we'd walked by. I kept an eye on the man as we continued to stroll, hoping to pick out his mark.

"What am I going to have to do to get you to trust me?" Zach's question took me aback, but it shouldn't have. Our relationship was one of the few topics we could discuss in public. Zach hadn't forgotten the marriage conversation at all. Instead he'd been carrying it around, mulling it over, for almost three weeks. "That's what this is about, right?"

"Zach, it's not that simple..." I started.

"Cam," he rolled his eyes. "You know me. You know me like no one else in the world ever will. And I know you. And I love you. I have always loved you, from the very beginning. We fought together. We almost died together. What do I have to do?"

"Zach. . ." I cut him off.

"I see him."

The ponytail man's mark had made us. He'd abruptly turned in the crowd and headed in the other direction. Zach instantly dropped my hand as we separated, circling opposite sides of the fountain and heading after the newest member of our clandestine Chicago community. The lady with the baby carriage moved also, in the same direction. _Interpol,_ I thought briefly, placing her.

Zach shifted into a run as we left the park. I speed-walked on the other side of the street, watching the man's head move from side to side as he considered his options. I ducked into an alley, and ran full out, emerging three blocks over. It was a risk, an instinct, but it paid off. The man was running now, quickly. He'd lost Zach somewhere along the way.

I studied his image in the store window reflections as I chased. Dark hair and a chiseled jaw. A sharp nose. A scar under his ear, right at the hairline. I'd remember him the next time we crossed paths. And then he was gone. We raced around a corner, and he vanished. I searched the alley. Nothing. No clues, no mysterious doors. Not even the dumpster. Whoever our new pavement artist was, I knew I'd been out-spied.

Zach rounded the corner, walking now.

"I lost him."

Zach shrugged. "I have a feeling we'll see him again."

"He made us." I said. "We don't know who he is, but he knows us."

"Yeah," Zach admitted. "That's concerning. Did you get a good look?"

I nodded. "He got sloppy the last block or so. He may have gotten away, but I'll know him the next time."

Then Zach took my hand as if nothing had happened and we stepped back onto the street.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for joining me for Chapter 4! Reviews are always appreciated. I've actually written quite a bit of this story for all of you, and I'm excited for you to see it. I'll be doing updates on Wednesdays and Saturdays (US), so stay tuned!**


	5. Chapter 5

"I do trust you," I offered.

Zach was standing in our bathroom, fresh from the shower, a towel neatly wrapped around his waist. I perched on the edge of the bathroom counter and instantly had his full attention.

"It isn't about that at all."

"Then explain, Cam." He was all seriousness. No smirk, no boyish grin. Just Zach. Honest, loyal, real Zach. "That was quite a thing to drop on me the night before a mission."

"I wish I could pin it down," I apologized. "I love you. I've loved you for so long. And we're so good together. That should be enough."

"But it isn't." I shook my head. He sighed. "Gosh, Gallagher Girl, you sure know how to bring a man down."

I sat, stone-faced, fighting every girl-like part of me that wanted to cry.

"Hey," Zach started, reading the truth under my facade. "No, no, it's alright," he took my hands and held them close. "Cam, it's okay. We're fine." I locked my eyes on his and took a breath. "I should never have asked you like that, in front of everyone. It was unfair of me. You are the love of my life, Cameron Morgan. And someday, when you're ready, we'll make it official. You just say the word, Gallagher Girl," he smiled. "This doesn't change anything between us."

And then he cradled my head in his hands and pressed his lips to mine, and a slow, intense fire burned in my veins. When we surfaced to breathe, he didn't let go. Instead he stared into my eyes and smiled. "I will always be yours, Cam. No matter what, I will always be yours."

He left the next morning. I made a half-hearted effort to stop him with my feminine wiles, but they were ineffective.

"That is totally unfair, Cammie." He accused, as I wrapped my arms around him, running my hands over his subtly tanned shoulders and down his chest.

"Come back to bed." I kissed his neck, trailing my lips over his ear in the way I knew he liked. He grimaced. An actual grimace, like leaving me was more physically painful than any injury I'd seen him endure over the past ten years. "How can you resist?" I teased.

He gently pushed me away. "Spy," he said, pointing to himself. "You know I have to go."

I did know. So I kissed him slowly, and whispered, "Be vigilant out there, Zach."

He left. It rained. I sulked for the entire morning.

Then I dragged myself off the couch and reminded myself that I was an international spy, and, even if my boyfriend/fiancé had just left for a minimum of two weeks in a dangerous, undisclosed location, I still had a job to do. If there was one thing I had learned in the last ten years, it was that working is better than worrying.

I found Elisa in the back corner of the library. She was more difficult to locate when the weather was poor, as her study habits were less reliable.

"There you are, I've been looking for you!" I exclaimed, as I settled at the same table.

"This is the quiet floor," she reprimanded.

"Whoops," I channeled my inner Liz and pretended not to have noticed. I really had noticed, I just didn't care. "Let's go grab a bite to eat. I'm done with classes for the day, and I'm starving. Plus my fiancé is on a business trip, so it's kind of quiet at home." _Not a lie._

She considered for 23 seconds. I know because I counted them. Then she grudgingly agreed, and packed up her bag.

We sat at the bar of a nearby grill and ate burgers. I frequented this restaurant often, not for its food, which was largely mediocre, but for the dark corners and the way the bar overlooked the seating area. It was the perfect layout for watching your back and your front. And the double-fried fries weren't bad either.

The bartender offered Elisa an unsolicited drink, and an undergraduate with too much hair gel winked at her from across the bar. She rolled her eyes.

"That will always be the worst move."

I nodded in agreement. "I'm so glad I don't date anymore." Not that I had ever really "dated" so to speak. But if my experiences with Josh's friend Dylan twelve years ago were representative of the majority of the available men, I couldn't argue with Elisa.

"You're engaged, you said?" It was the first time she'd ever asked me something about myself, so I jumped at the opportunity for friend-bonding.

I nodded. "Just recently. We've known each other a long time, but he travels a lot." I shrugged. "Sometimes it feels like we barely see each other."

"Travels to where?"

"Everywhere. Zach's a pharmaceutical representative, so he's always on the road." Zach's legend as a salesman hadn't changed much over the years either, and had actually assisted in taking down an insider prescription drug cartel in Columbia at one point. I shuddered internally at the thought. Six months of deep cover had certainly put a strain on our relationship for a while.

"I'm sure that's difficult."

I nodded. "It helps to have my own friends though," I offered. At least it would, if my friends weren't also traversing the globe posing as supermodels (Bex's legend) and cosmetics heiresses (Macey's not-a-legend).

"What about you, are you seeing anyone?" It was classic girl-talk, but it was also an in.

"I am here to study hard. I don't make much time for social activities."

"Well I'm glad you made an exception for me." I smiled. She looked at me like I was a puppy clinging to her leg that she wanted to get rid of but knew she shouldn't kick. I'd take it.

"I must be feeling generous today. This morning I also foolishly agreed to a date."

My heart dropped, but I didn't let it show. "Someone from school?"

She made a face like she'd smelled a foul odor. "A neighbor. He helped me move in and has been bothering me ever since."

A Honeypot. It was too coincidental that Elisa would meet an overly friendly neighbor on her first day in Chicago. A neighbor who had helped her carry her belongings into her new apartment. A neighbor who'd had the perfect opportunity to plant bugs and cameras and who knew what else. Zach had been right.

"When's the date?"

"Saturday night. I'm already dreading it."

"I could come along." She looked confused. "Not, like, on the date, but to sit at the bar and keep an eye out. Make sure he's not a serial killer or something."

"Is this a thing American girls commonly do?"

"I've done it for other friends a bunch of times." If by 'friends' I meant 'likely targets of international espionage,' it wasn't really a lie.

She considered for a moment. She nodded. I was in.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for joining me for chapter 5! I hope you're all enjoying this as much as I'm enjoying writing it.**


	6. Chapter 6

Despite my international spy training, I was tired as I sat at the bar Saturday night. Elisa was on a date with a seemingly mild-mannered, average-looking blond man named Luke. I sipped my rum and coke and tried to read their lips in the reflection of my glass. It was a little smeary, but I was able to catch the gist of the conversation. They seemed to be having a good time. I was both happy for Elisa and pretty concerned.

Luke didn't seem like an international spy. To be fair, most of us don't, which is kind of the point. But I didn't see Luke check the exits once. I didn't see him scan the bar for familiar faces. I didn't see him carefully wipe the fingerprints or DNA off of any of his serving utensils. I didn't see him roll his napkin in his lap, so that he'd be prepared if he suddenly had to _subdue_ the waiter. Luke seemed normal. Luke seemed nice.

But the spy in me wasn't convinced. So I watched every movement, and switched to coffee when my focus lapsed (although the coffee mug was less reflective).

I'd spent the previous night running through the tombs at Blackthorne again. Catherine Goode may have been dead for ten years, but in my nightmares she was alive and well. The Langley medical team had diagnosed me with post traumatic stress disorder around the age of 22, about the time Zach and I started taking separate assignments. In the middle of Zach's six-month deep cover op in Columbia, to be exact, when I finally had to admit that sleeping a total of ten hours a week wasn't normal, even by spy standards.

They called it PTSD, but I knew it was different. Every time Zach left, I re-lived our altercations with the Circle of Cavan. It was like I was back in sublevel two junior year, watching myself fight the Circle in Boston, in slow motion, from the outside. Unable to interfere. The Tombs. Rome. The Prison. The night Catherine came to the safe house. The night Gallagher burned.

It killed me to know he was out of my reach, fighting an evil I likely didn't even know about. All I could do was check my dead letter email accounts and hope for them to stay empty. Silence was good. Silence was safe. Bad news came in the form of a call to arms, a search for the truth. Like the time Tina Walters disappeared (before we learned that she'd actually embarked on a three-month, unauthorized deep-cover operation to infiltrate the Kardashians' media empire). Or the time Kim Lee was taken hostage by the manufacturer of Chile's new nuclear submarine. Or the deadly lab accident that had claimed Zach's classmate Jonas two years ago.

I'd grown accustomed to the nightmares, but that didn't make them better.

So I wasn't at my best that night, as I sat at the bar. If I had been, I may not have missed the way Elisa caught my eye and kept scanning. Or the way she jumped when the waiter dropped a plate at the next table. Or the way she fiddled with her napkin in her lap. But I did miss those things. In fact, I was so distracted that almost missed Elisa ending the date.

 _That was a lovely meal._

 _Can I walk you home?_

 _Thank you, but no. I am meeting a friend for drinks nearby._ It was a plan we'd agreed on, so she wouldn't be forced to walk home with Luke if the date went poorly and so he wouldn't get overconfident if it went well.

I slid some cash across the bar and slipped out after them. Elisa was letting Luke hold her hand as they walked toward another bar up the street. She was going to agree to a second date. The girl and the spy in me could both tell. Things were about to get interesting.


	7. Chapter 7

I could tell the minute we reconvened after Elisa's date with Luke that continuing to protect her would be an uphill battle.

"How did it go?" I inquired.

"I don't think he is a serial killer." she responded.

"Are you going out again?" She shrugged, and then we went our separate ways.

I was going to have to get creative. Bugging Elisa's apartment would usually be the best strategy, but she spent so much time on campus, I knew I'd miss information. Her phone would be better, but it would be difficult to swipe. I would have to resort to more classic approaches in the meantime.

I spent the next two weeks tailing Elisa on campus and staking out her apartment in the evenings. Since I was barely sleeping anyway, it wasn't much of a sacrifice to drink coffee until about 9 every night, when the coffee shop across the street closed.

Until the night I ran into Elisa. I had been pretending to study since about five, when Elisa had left campus, but at 8:13 that evening I saw Elisa leave her apartment and head in my direction.

I threw my books in my bag and made a beeline for the bathroom. It was occupied. So I stood in line and pretended I was waiting to order another espresso.

Elisa noticed me the moment she came through the door. "Cammie," she said, coolly. "What a surprise to see you here." She didn't sound that surprised. It worried me.

"I like to study here sometimes," I said calmly. "Zach is out of town still, and I haven't been sleeping that well." _Not a lie._ "What are you doing here so late?"

There was something suspicious in her voice as she said "Study break. I live right around the corner."

I feigned surprise, and paid for my coffee. "Well, I was taking this one for the road, so I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"I guess so."

The lights were on in my apartment, even though I knew I hadn't left them that way. I could see them from the street. Zach had berated me about the number of windows in the loft when we rented it, but I was happy for them now. (I had won him over with effusions about natural light, and how rare it was to find a landlord who lived in another state, and excitement that ours was the only residential unit in the building - spies hate neighbors).

I was on high alert as I crept up the back stairs as quickly and quietly as possible, prepared to execute a Mackowksy Maneuver at any moment.

I kicked open my door. I grabbed the man inside and flipped him over my head without a moment's pause, pinning him to the ground. There was an audible _oof_ as he hit the floor.

"Haven't lost your touch at all, Gallagher Girl."

"You're three days early."

Zach grinned. "I couldn't wait to see you."

"And you're hurt." The _oof_ matched a two-day-old bruise that started somewhere in the middle of Zach's chest and stretched all the way to his shoulder, crossing two or three ribs.

He rolled his eyes. "Ran into a little _resistance_ with my exit plan. Nothing to worry about." I worried anyway, and calculated where he must have been for an extraction injury to be two days old by the time he made it home. "But Bex says 'hi.'"

"I thought she was on a deep cover op?"

He shrugged. "We crossed paths."

Bex had beaten the tar out of Zach to maintain her cover. Somewhere in Thailand. Or South Korea. I was almost sure of it.

"I'll be fine," he sighed. "I just wasn't expecting to be flipped around like a rag doll by my girlfriend ."

"You're three days early," I repeated. "Sorry."

He smirked. "I forgot how good you are." I realized he hadn't actually seen me work in a while.

I pointed to myself, Zach-style, and said "Gallagher Girl."

He laughed. "It's kinda hot," he admitted. "You going to let me up now?" I considered. Then I helped him to his feet and pulled him in for a kiss. I noticed the way he tried not to wheeze when I hugged him. Bruised ribs are tough to hide.

"You're hurt," I repeated.

"How's Elisa?" he asked.

"Something's off." Until I said it, I hadn't really realized what I'd been thinking all evening. "I don't think her neighbor is a Honeypot, for one," I noted. "And when I ran into Elisa at the coffee shop near her building tonight, she seemed..." I hesitated. "Suspicious."

"You've been tailing her?"

"Yeah, but she hasn't seen me following her on campus. And the coffee shop would be too hard to see into from her apartment without binoculars or a scope. Plus there were totally legitimate reasons for me to be in both those places."

Zach considered for a moment. "It's probably nothing." But a flash of concern in his eyes told me he was crediting my instincts.

"Yeah," I agreed, even though I didn't believe it either. "Just how credible is your asset?" I asked.

"Cam," Zach warned. I knew better than to question or discuss Zach's sources. We could never overestimate their safety, even in our hopefully clean home. It was impossible to be certain we were alone.

"I know," I sighed. "It's probably nothing. Maybe I've been pouring it on a little strong. Maybe she's naturally suspicious." _Maybe she's not who she says she is._ I didn't say the words, but I could see Zach's eyes darken as we both thought them.

* * *

 **AN: Two chapters tonight, since Chapter 6 is a little short. I'm happy to announce that I finished writing this week. Lot's of exciting stuff coming to you in future chapters. Thank you so much for joining me, I am so enjoying sharing my work with you. See you Saturday!**


	8. Chapter 8

"I don't like this." I hadn't seen Zach this serious with me in a long time. Probably not since junior year at Gallagher. Something was off, and we both knew it. The scope of our operation was changing from defensive to offensive, and Zach didn't like it.

It wasn't like I was new to the field. We'd been on plenty of dangerous missions together, and I'd been on plenty alone. His concern was unwarranted, but, as usual, you couldn't tell him that.

"Just another day," I shrugged. _Just another day attempting to tap the phone of my classmate/ protectee/ maybe friend/ maybe government operative._

It shouldn't have been a difficult operation, but, like most young adults, Elisa kept her phone on the table in her sight at almost all times. I knew I'd have trouble swiping it long enough to install Liz's patented spyware.

I saw an opportunity as we waited in line at the cafeteria. Elisa had been ducking me since the coffee shop incident, but I'd finally caught up with her this afternoon. This option was less than covert, but as we'd gone three days without intel, it was necessary.

Elisa set her phone down to pay, and I palmed it into my bag and attached the mini USB installer. I'd have to buy a solid thirty seconds while it installed.

It took her ten seconds to pay for her food.

Another two while she did a double-take at the place she'd set her phone down.

Two more as she said "I put it right here."

Two more as she leveled a glare at me, and I intentionally looked in the other direction.

Two more as she said "Cammie, where's my phone?" in a tone that said she knew I had it.

Two more as I calmly said "You put it in your bag."

She looked. Three seconds. "It's not here."

"It must be, I just saw you with it." I feigned innocence. Two seconds.

She looked again. Three seconds.

"It's. Not. There." Two seconds.

"Just take everything out and look for it," I rolled my eyes. Elisa looked ready to murder me in cold blood whether or not I had her phone. But she started taking things out of her bag on the closest table.

I unplugged the cable and palmed the phone back between the pages of a notebook. "Look there it is," I exclaimed. "It got stuck in this notebook."

Elisa snatched the phone from my hand. "Oh look at the time," she said coolly. "I'll have to take my lunch to go."

She stormed off. The cafeteria server looked at me like he knew he'd just seen something weird, but he wasn't quite sure what.

What happened next was pure luck. I was pretty sure I'd blown my cover. Even if Elisa didn't know I was an international spy, she certainly thought I was a stalker. I was pretty sure she wouldn't use her phone again. Or she'd at least reformat it.

But somewhere in the 30 seconds that I'd had Elisa's phone, she'd gotten a surprisingly unsecured text from an unlabeled number, and Liz's spyware had forwarded it to my burner. A popular bar about two miles from campus and a time. A meeting.

I couldn't tail Elisa. I'd been made, and even I was too good a spy not to admit it. Zach agreed to conduct the stakeout instead.

"I'll hit the apartments while they're out," I offered.

"No Cam, it's too dangerous."

"This is _not_ my first infiltration." I rolled my eyes.

"We don't know who we're dealing with here." Zach's eyes were dark. "And you'll have no backup."

I was annoyed. As a general rule, it's more difficult to blend in when you have company, so I routinely worked alone. Plus, empty apartments aren't that dangerous. Frankly, I'd been in a bunch of empty apartments, and not even the dangerous ones had required backup. And that included a pet Tiger I met in Paraguay.

"I'll be fine," I assured him. "And you'll be on comms."

"Cam," he said quietly. "This is dangerous."

"So is everything I do." He couldn't argue.

That night it was Zach who staked out the coffee shop across the street. It was Zach who watched Elisa leave her apartment, alone. It was Zach who saw Elisa make contact at a nearby bar. With the dark-haired man from Grant Park.

I'd been right. Luke wasn't a Honeypot. And Zach had been right about seeing the dark-haired man again, too.

I snuck up to the front door of Elisa's building and picked the lock. My spine tingled. Someone was watching me, I could feel it. Zach had eyes on Elisa, and her associate. I thought briefly of the man with the ponytail, but dismissed the thought. On the off chance he was following me, I'd deal with that when it became an issue. I climbed three flights of stairs to Elisa's apartment. Then I saw the electronic tripwire. Our instincts were spot on.

"I've got a GS6350 here," I said, calmly.

"Abort, Chameleon," Zach ordered through my comms unit.

I pulled a compact from my bag, along with some pre-chewed gum, and my emergency fishing line, and quickly bypassed the alarm. Zach was being overprotective, and I knew it.

I picked the lock. Zach heard.

"I said _Abort_." I ignored him.

Elisa's apartment was a mess. She clearly spent all of her time studying and none of it cleaning.

The area around her desk was especially messy. I'd started off the evening planning to plant bugs and retreat, but the spy in me told me I should change course.

Elisa was certainly studying macroeconomics. A large map hung above the desk, with certain countries circled in red. Piles of research were haphazardly strewn around the area. But my eyes were drawn to one sheet of paper.

On the corner of one document, a string of numbers was visible. Maybe it was the spy in me, or maybe it was the math PhD candidate, but I grabbed the paper and pulled it loose.

"Chameleon, we have a situation," Zach said in my ear, but I barely heard him.

I was too busy examining the string of equations, running them through my mind. An algorithm.

"Chameleon, do you copy? Targets are leaving the restaurant. They're heading toward you by car."

An algorithm based on gross domestic product and strength of the dollar and crop prices and gallons of potable water and numbers of humans.

"Cammie, you've got less than five minutes."

With variable that appeared to account for regime strength.

"Cammie, get out of there right now."

An algorithm for a coup.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for joining me for Chapter 8! Thanks to everyone who has been following along and also reviewing. I so enjoy writing for you.**


	9. Chapter 9

I should have run. The minute Zach told me Elisa was coming back, I should have run.

But I couldn't. Instead I started snapping pictures of the pages with my watch. The map, the room, the four passports I found in Elisa's locked desk drawers. Time was fleeting, and I knew I wouldn't get another chance. Zach and I had stumbled onto something big. Something that could hurt a lot of people. So I had to gather whatever information I could. A fight might be coming, and we could need it.

I heard the car pull up. I should have thought about the danger I could be putting us both in if I were discovered. I should have run. Instead I hid, in a narrow space along the refrigerator. I heard Elisa and the other man enter the apartment.

"Can I get you a drink?"

"You know what I'm here for."

"A drink first."

"I'll pour."

Never let anyone else pour your drink, even if they're standing right in front of you. Spies should know better. Girls should probably know better. Girl-spies should definitely know better.

Elisa was into some dangerous stuff, like overthrowing unstable governments using math, but I still couldn't quite peg her. She lacked the instincts of a covert operative. She appeared to have no support (I hadn't found any evidence of associates in my relatively thorough search of her apartment), and she tried too hard to keep her cool as the situation escalated. As far as I could tell, Elisa was relatively inexperienced and on her own.

So I wasn't entirely surprised when she sipped the drink the dark-haired man offered her. I wasn't entirely surprised as he demanded the algorithm. I wasn't entirely surprised when Elisa started to sway, and grip the couch for balance.

I was pretty surprised when Zach kicked open the door and disrupted the meeting. He had shouted at me in my ear until about the time the car arrived. Then he'd gone silent, as if he knew I was hiding. As if he knew a single word might give me away. Apparently he'd grown tired of waiting.

I was also pretty surprised when the ponytail man came bounding in and twisted Zach into a pretzel on the floor. The dark-haired man was surprised too. He was even more surprised when my foot landed in the middle of his back.

Elisa may have been an amateur, but the dark-haired man and the ponytail man were professionals. The dark-haired man grabbed my ankle and parried my weight, thudding me onto the floor. I tried to pull his legs out from under him, but he countered my efforts. He tried to flip me over his head, but I managed a solid kick to his jaw, and a cat-like landing. I went for his knees but he predicted my move, grabbed a leg and flipped me over, onto my stomach on the floor. His weight pressed on top of me. There was nowhere to go. A quick glance told me Zach was in a similar subdued position. I slid a finger toward my emergency signal, a seemingly cheap heart necklace.

International spies don't use an emergency signal lightly. Raining the entire might of the closest field office down on your operation generally isn't a great idea. Emergency signals aren't very covert. Emergency signals are a last resort.

But looking at Zach on the floor beside me, I knew our time had run out. I knew we needed backup.

The dark haired man grabbed my necklace and tried to choke me with it, but he couldn't stop my fingers from brushing the hidden button. A soft pulse went through the chain, confirmation that my signal had been sent. The dark haired man felt it. He snapped a very rude Greek word in a native Greek accent.

The dark haired man yanked the necklace from my neck. "We have to go," he ordered. "We'll come back for the third." We were roughed along, down the stairs, to the back of an unmarked van.

Something very hard hit me in the back of the head. The world spun for a moment. And then it disappeared.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: From here on out, there will be interspersed chapters from other perspectives, written in third person, along the lines of Ally Carter's declassified epilogues. First person chapters are always from Cammie's point of view, just like in the books.**

* * *

Elizabeth Sutton had come to Chicago to approach one very lucky Chicago 12 year-old and invite her to spy school. When the assignment had come up, Liz had immediately volunteered. She'd never forgotten a second of the day Patricia Buckingham came to her parents' house and asked her to come to Gallagher (and not just because she had a photographic memory). Liz jumped at the opportunity to be the happy messenger for the next generation of Gallagher Girls.

And Cammie was in Chicago. Except for the reunion, Liz had barely seen Cammie in years. Liz had spent almost 8 years in a CIA development lab before she started teaching. With Cammie and Bex and Macey out saving the world, they rarely crossed paths. And, despite her many technology improvements for the CIA, phones were still risky. Emails were still scarce. Liz still missed her friends.

When Liz had found Cammie that day, she'd clearly been involved in an operation. Liz didn't want to interrupt, so she waited. She watched Cammie go into the rowhouse. She watched a young blond woman and a man with dark hair arrive together. She watched Zach arrive. She watched a skinny man with a ponytail bound after him.

Liz was really a scientist, but she still knew trouble when she saw it. She waited, on edge, for fifteen minutes. The two men re-appeared, with two victims in tow, a man and a woman. Liz recognized Zach, and her heart dropped.

Liz may not have been a covert operative, but she was really good at counting. One person was still in that rowhouse. It could have been Cammie. It could have been the blond-haired girl. Liz wasn't sure. But before she could think about it, she was sprinting across the street and through the unlocked front door.

Terror and relief both flooded Liz's mind as she realized that the woman who lay motionless on the floor wasn't Cammie. That Cammie and Zach were in the back of the unmarked van outside. But Liz wasn't about to leave this girl alone, and in harm's way.

 _She's been drugged_ , Liz concluded, after a brief examination of the girl on the floor. She pulled her patented universal antidote from her bag, and tipped it into the girl's mouth. The girl choked, but her eyes opened.

"Help. . ." she gasped. "Coming back . . . they're coming back."

Liz hauled the girl to her feet. It was hard, but Liz had learned a lot about counter-balance in P&E, so she knew how to leverage her tiny frame for all it was worth.

"We have to go," Liz said firmly. She guided the girl out of the apartment and into a utility closet at the end of the hall.

Hushed, angry voices floated through the hall.

"Where is she?"

"I drugged her, she couldn't have gone far."

"There's no time, they'll be here any minute."

"Do you have it?"

"Maybe. I don't know. There's so much here."

"We have to go."

The voices receded. Liz guided the blond-haired girl out a basement exit.

"We need to get out of here," Liz said firmly. Something bad was coming. Liz wasn't sure what, but the men had been unwilling to face it. Liz didn't want to be there when whatever two skilled professional operatives were afraid of showed up. "Do you have a safehouse or something? Somewhere you can go?"

The blond-haired girl was regaining awareness. She nodded. "A friend. . . nearby . . . she's on vacation."

Liz laid the blond-haired girl in the backseat floor of a tan sedan in the rear parking lot. Liz pressed her thumb to the dashboard and the car quietly came to life. Liz pulled out of the parking lot, using every vehicular countersurveillance principle she'd learned in school.

"I'm Liz," she offered, glancing into the back seat. "Don't worry, you're safe with me."

"Elisa," the blond-girl mumbled.

"Hi, Elisa," Liz forced a smile. "Now tell me how to get you to your safehouse."

* * *

 **AN: Two chapters tonight because they're both a bit short. Tune back in on Saturday to how Bex, Macey, Joe and Rachel are coping. And next Wednesday, we'll find out what happened to Cammie and Zach. Thanks to everyone who's been joining me on this adventure, and thanks also for your lovely reviews!**


	11. Chapter 11

Joe Solomon counted the seconds of every minute, growing more and more concerned as each second passed. He was going to have to tell Rachel soon. Soon it would be unavoidable.

It had been six hours since Cammie's emergency signal had partially triggered, sending the majority of the Chicago field office to an empty apartment in Hyde Park. It had been five hours and fifty-two minutes since he'd gotten the call from Director Townsend asking him to come in.

It had been five hours and thirty-five minutes since Townsend had looked Joe Solomon in the eyes and told him the call had been a courtesy. That Townsend wouldn't be sending a team after Zach and Cammie for three more days. That there was a chance the operation hadn't been blown, that Zach and Cammie hadn't been compromised, and it was worth the risk.

Joe Solomon hadn't been on a mission in more than five years. After his marriage to Rachel, they'd settled at Gallagher. Joe taught covert operations, and Rachel continued to run the school. They spent their breaks at Joe's lake house, forgetting the weight of the world. The weight of this business that had stolen people they'd both loved.

Joe had sworn, when he first came to teach at Gallagher twelve years ago, that he'd never let this business take another Morgan before her time. He had pushed and tested Cammie, so that this moment would never happen. So that he'd never have to watch Rachel's face as she learned her only daughter was missing, was hurt, was dead. Cammie was supposed to be good. Cammie was supposed to be safe.

Joe knew it was crazy. Matthew had been one of the best, and he'd been killed. Abby was one of the best, and she'd had more close calls that Joe cared to think about.

And then there was Zach. Director Townsend's voice hadn't betrayed a single ounce of worry as he advised Joe that Cammie and Zach had, presumably, been taken. Joe Solomon was a gifted spy, but Zachary Goode was his son, far more than he was Townsend's. Joe had wrenched Zach away from the Circle of Cavan at sixteen, and had trained him into a brilliant operative. An honorable man. A man worthy of Matthew Morgan's daughter, if ever there was one.

Joe Solomon was cracking, and he knew if he wasn't careful, he would break. A retrieval team would be called in. Word had been spread among all of their active operatives. Rachel would find out soon, and Joe knew he had to be the one to tell her.

It had been six hours and four minutes, and the odds of finding Zach and Cammie alive were getting smaller with every passing second. Rachel had to know.

It was terrible. Rachel read the pain in Joe's face the moment she saw him. Joe had been in a coma the last time Cammie had disappeared, and he couldn't imagine it had been any easier. Nevertheless, he was glad he'd missed it.

"Cammie." she whispered, pale, panicked, already knowing the answer.

Joe nodded. "And Zach."

Rachel allowed herself to crumple into his arms. "We'll find them," she whispered, pleading with herself as much as with Joe. "We have to find them."

Joe Solomon didn't cry. Joe Solomon hadn't cried in more than ten years, not since an early Wednesday morning in November, when he first realized how badly he'd broken his promise to his closest friend. How close the Circle of Cavan had come to taking Cammie, on his watch.

But he cried then.

Rachel cried too.

There was nothing to be done. Seventeen years ago, Joe had gone to hunt for Matthew. Seventeen years ago, Joe Solomon had been one of the CIA's greatest assets. But now Joe was older and battered. He was no longer the best agent for the job. Townsend would be sending his best operatives to find them, operatives Joe and Rachel had trained. Joe just had to hope that he'd done better by them than he'd done by Cammie and Zach.

There was nothing to do but wait.


	12. Chapter 12

Rebecca Baxter had never been wrong a day in her life. But something was wrong now. It was a feeling she had the moment she awoke in Kuala Lumpur. It wasn't even morning yet. Barely two a.m. But a shiver ran down Bex's spine that had nothing to do with the weather. She pulled herself from the bed in her tiny apartment and walked to the high rise's windows. The city slept, but something was wrong. Bex could feel it in her bones.

She dressed quickly and hit the pavement, channeling her inner Cammie without thinking about it. Years of watching Cammie disappear had only added to her own skillset. Bex certainly had never reached Cammie's level of mastery, but she'd never met a skill she couldn't improve if she tried hard enough.

Bex thought of her parents on their farm in Buckinghamshire. No, that wasn't it, she decided. Even retired, her parents were some of the best operatives in the business. Any person who went to the farm intending to cause harm would have their hands full.

Bex knew her friends were scattered across the globe. She'd crossed paths with them over the years, but their contact was sparse, scattered. It was a far cry from Gallagher, when they rarely went four hours without seeing each other. Maybe that was why Bex still felt like she was connected to each of them. Maybe they'd synced frequencies at Gallagher, and never really separated.

Bex checked her dead letter e-mail accounts. Nothing yet. That was a good sign, but it wasn't conclusive. Even bad news sometimes traveled slowly. Bex stopped at a street cart and bought a satay. It might have been two am, but that didn't mean Bex wasn't hungry. Besides, if her instincts were right, and they basically always were, this would be a long day.

Maybe it was Macey. Macey had always been a little rules-optional. With her powerful position as head of her mother's cosmetics company, and political bloodlines, she'd been routinely called out of the board room to infiltrate dangerous white collar crime rings. Bex had certainly heard stories of Macey's less than careful operations. Where most people used planning and forethought, Macey jumped in with both feet and let her looks, money, and unwavering confidence carry her the rest of the way.

Maybe it was Liz. Sure, she was teaching at Gallagher now, but that didn't mean she was out of danger. Maybe Liz and fallen down a staircase, or gotten stuck in a secret passageway. Maybe one of Liz's students was the next Catherine Goode. Maybe there had been an accident. Bex had to admit, she'd been less than confident about Liz's safety since that deadly lab accident at Blackthorne a few years ago. Though there'd been whispers that it wasn't truly an accident, Bex still feared for Liz. Bex had seen Liz hurt herself with a paperclip. Bex wasn't sure she should be trusted with a lab full of dangerous chemicals.

Bex supposed it could be Cammie and Zach. Bex had seen Zach just a few weeks ago. He'd been sent on behalf of the joint task force, to exchange information and check in with Bex. Bex had beaten him up to maintain her cover at one point. She was careful not to hurt him too badly, but she had to admit it had been fun to spar like they had at Gallagher. For a moment, she'd forgotten she was in a strange country, working her way into the central government, to gain classified information about a dangerous terrorist group.

In their few brief moments alone, Zach had confided in her. He'd told Bex that Cammie was hesitant to get married. This hadn't surprised Bex at all. _Look at her mom,_ she'd told Zach. _How could you witness a thing like that and not believe that eventually it will happen to you. Eventually you'll be the one explaining to your children that their father is never coming home._

 _Really?_ Zach's voice had been laden with sarcasm. _Because I thought it had more to do with my mother's penchant for torturing and trying to murder her family._

 _You didn't know her before it happened._ Bex had said. _You never knew that Cammie. You didn't see Rachel every year on his birthday._

Bex passed a man who looked so much like Joe Solomon it was uncanny. She felt the creeping dread again. She knew her phone was about to buzz before it did. She needed to go. Now.

Bex knew she'd be jeopardizing an important operation. Bex knew she'd have a lot of explaining to do to some very important and dangerous people. But her sisterhood was calling, and that was the most important thing of all.

"Where are you?" the voice on the other end of the line was making every attempt to stay composed. Every attempt to pretend things were normal.

"Kuala Lumpur."

"I'll be right there."

Bex didn't know where Macey had been that she'd arrived in Malaysia with her private jet in a matter of hours, but it didn't really matter. They had a job to do, and that was more important than anything.

"Poor Rachel," Macey said, trying to hide the fear in her words. Bex heard it anyway. Sure, they were both professional spies, but they'd known each other so long that lies were basically impossible. "I can't even imagine."

Somehow, Macey had heard the news two hours before an alarm was ever raised. Every friendly government operative in the world may have been looking for Cammie and Zach by the time Macey and Bex took off from Malaysia, but they knew no one had a better chance of finding Cammie than they did.

"We'll find her," Macey was confident. "No one in the world could hide her from us."

Bex considered Macey.

"You found me," Macey reminded her. "You found me, and we're going to find Cam."

Bex wanted to argue against Macey's logic. Bex wanted to distinguish between finding an upset teenager at her teacher's safehouse and finding a kidnapped government operative who knew far more information than was good for her. Bex wanted to forget the following summer, when Cammie had disappeared, and no one had been able to find her, not even Bex. When Cammie had been taken by the Circle of Cavan. But the thought of Cammie being gone forever was too much to bear, so she just looked at Macey and nodded.

"Try to get some sleep," Macey advised. "It really is a long flight back."

Macey had dozed off by the time they stopped to refuel, but Bex was wide awake, counting the minutes until they'd land at the Midway International Airport and the real work would begin.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks so much for joining me for Chapters 11 and 12! Hope you enjoyed getting to check in with some of our other favorite characters. Don't worry, they'll be back soon! Come back here on Wed to see how Cammie and Zach are holding up.**


	13. Chapter 13

It was cold. That was the first thought I had after I realized I wasn't dead. The back of my head was throbbing, and I could feel the blood caking the collar of my shirt. Bruises were rising on my skin. A thick rope cut into my wrists and ankles

 _Zach._ It all came flooding back.

I couldn't see around the blindfold, but I could hear breathing nearby. Maybe six feet to my right, just out of arms' reach. Then a light tapping. Morse code.

 _Cam?_

 _I'm ok,_ I tapped back. I could just stretch my toes to tap the floor.

There had to be a way out. They could have killed us and they hadn't. They needed us for something. At the very least, they wanted to know what we knew. They'd be coming back, and we would need to be ready.

I stretched my fingers, trying to decide whether I could twist them free of the rope using the Kazinsky method. It wasn't going to work. Our captors were professionals. I mean, these knots weren't Bex-slipknot good, but they were pretty solid.

I didn't have anything to work with. I knew there was an emergency knife hidden in the heel of my shoe, but there was no way I could reach it with my hands tied. I should have grabbed something from the apartment, should have hidden a weapon. How could I have been so stupid? And I'd put Zach in jeopardy too, which was probably the worst part. I rubbed my fingers together, as if I could conjure a weapon out of thin air.

 _Of course._ My fingers rubbed the engagement ring Zach had given me. If I'd been a diamond girl, I probably could have sliced the ropes, but the stone in my hand wasn't sharp enough for that. It worked pretty well when leveraged into the knots, though. (Like I said, these weren't exactly Bex-level knots.)

With a fair amount of effort, I worked a hand free. I slowly slid the blindfold a hair off my eyes. The room swam. My head throbbed. But we were alone. And I was able to see Zach next to me. Zach breathing, and relatively intact. My heart slowed a bit, and I was able to think.

I slid the tiny blade from the heel of my shoe. I sliced through the ropes around my legs. I surveyed the room.

It was dark. I could barely make out the edges of grey cinderblocks around the perimeter. It was dark, and cold, and we were in some kind of cellar. There were no windows. No light to estimate the time, or our location.

The best way out was to wait for our captors to return, and surprise them. It was also our best chance to learn who they were and what they wanted. We couldn't know how long we'd been unconscious. We couldn't know when they'd return. I was afraid to move too far, and I wasn't at all convinced I would remain upright if I tried.

 _Catch?_ I tapped.

He opened his palms, and leaned them toward me. I gently tossed the blade to Zach, and it landed in his open hand. He slid it quickly through the knots, then slid the blindfold up from his eyes, just enough to see me. I saw him breathe a similar sigh of relief.

He loosened his own bonds, and gently tossed the blade back. I kept it in my hands.

There was nothing to do but wait. Zach's eyes locked with mine, full of pain and fear, and more than anything, determination. Determination to keep me safe. I counted seconds. A lot of seconds.

Like three hours worth of seconds. I knew there were a lot of reasons to keep operatives waiting before an interrogation. You could use it to play with their nerves. You could throw them off their game. Sometimes you were just busy doing something more important. It took all my strength and years of field experience to remain calm.

Zach's eyes didn't break their gaze once, like he was soaking in all of me that he could, in case this was the end. Like he didn't want to spend a single one of his remaining seconds thinking of anything else. I was less focused. Something about the moment flashed me back to a London field office, and a bridge, and ice skating, and Joe Solomon.

 _Joe Solomon and my Mother_. My heart ached. I'd been conscious for three hours, and unconscious for who knew how long before that. Surely they must know by now that Zach and I were missing. My heart broke at the thought of my mother reliving the worst moments of her life. Of her getting the same call she got fifteen years ago, when my father was killed. Of her remembering the last time I'd disappeared, when I'd been taken by the Circle.

I'd failed Joe Solomon. Surely that was what Mr. Solomon would be thinking right now. He had worked so hard to protect me from this very fate, to protect my mother from this day. I should have run. I should have left the algorithm, left Elisa, and protected us both. But I'd gotten in too deep, and I'd dragged Zach down with me.

I should have known he'd come in after me. I should have known he'd never leave me in danger. I knew we'd started taking separate missions for a reason. I knew Zach's field instincts were always a little compromised when it came to me. There'd been a very close call in Pakistan six years ago. And a very difficult conversation when we realized we weren't safe for each other anymore. Followed by a very long six months when Zach disappeared to a dangerous country, alone, for the first time.

"Hey," Zach whispered. "We'll be okay, Gallagher Girl." He stretched out a hand to brush my fingers. "We'll be okay."

I nodded and forced a smile, although I really wasn't at all convinced.

At four hours and 42 minutes, we heard voices in the hallway.

"It's impossible. I drugged her."

"Apparently not enough."

"We got two. It's good enough. They'll know."

"You had better be right about that."

Zach and I shared a glance, mostly replaced our blindfolds, and pretended we hadn't been freed. And then we prepared for a rematch.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for joining me for Chapter 13! I'm so glad so many of you are enjoying the story. Thanks for following along, and for your lovely reviews. See you on Saturday!**


	14. Chapter 14

It was the most unsafe safehouse Liz had ever seen. Liz hadn't really been to very many safehouses, sure, but none of them had been accessed by a key hidden under a flowerpot (except for that one mansion Macey had taken them to during their senior year at Gallagher, but Liz wasn't really counting that).

Liz settled Elisa on the couch inside, and started securing a perimeter. She didn't have much to work with, but she kept a few spare laser sensors in her bag, and her patented roof access detection sensor for good measure. A Gallagher Girl was always prepared.

They were far from "safe" Liz knew, (those laser sensors could easily be disabled with a McHenry Cosmetics compact in about 15 seconds), but it was better than nothing.

When Elisa revived completely (the universal antidote could be less effective when mixed with too much adrenaline), Liz knew it was time to do some detective work.

"So who do you work for, hun," Liz asked, gingerly. (The universal antidote could also give you a hangover headache). Liz had already run Elisa's face through the list of active CIA agents and come up empty. Liz had gotten some fingerprints too, but Elisa Solokov looked pretty normal on paper, except for her connection to the Russian scientist. And, unlike the Gallagher Girls and their colleagues, she actually _had_ a paper.

Elisa blinked. Hard. "Interpol," she said slowly. Liz knew her field skills were very rusty, but it sounded like a lie.

"And you were working with Cammie and Zach?" Liz was skeptical. CIA/Interpol joint missions were rare, especially after that troubling Max Edwards incident ten years ago.

Elisa must have sensed Liz's skepticism because she clarified, "Not exactly. It was more of a common enemy kind of thing."

Liz supposed that made sense. "Well, I have to call my boss and let her know that I've been delayed," Liz said calmly.

Liz took out her phone. Elisa knocked it from her hand and stomped on it.

"No phones," her tone was nervous, fearful, Liz thought. "They're still looking for me. It's too dangerous."

"What do you propose then?"

"I have a check-in in a few days with . . . another agent. We stay hidden until then."

Normally, it wouldn't have seemed like an unreasonable plan to Liz. Liz had already met her future Gallagher Girl and wasn't expected back at school until the end of the week. This would have given her extra time to work on her lesson plans (she'd finally landed the Intro to Accessories class and she was excited to teach a new generation of Gallagher Girls how to weaponize a barrette).

But something about Elisa just didn't sit right with her. And a few hours earlier, Liz had watched as two thugs loaded one of her best friends and her friend's boyfriend/fiancé/whatever (Liz _had_ heard the rumors, after all) into a van.

"What were you doing at that rowhouse?"

"I used to live there."

"And...?"

Elisa shrugged. "I have some enemies. They caught up with me."

"And Cammie and Zach were there because?"

"I. . . I don't know. They must have been going after my enemies. Cammie. . . she's my classmate. . . At U of C . . . She'd been following me. I didn't know why. . .and I've never seen the man before. . . Zach, you said?"

"Well they were taken by the people who came for you, and they could be in real danger right now." Liz was starting to realize waiting wasn't an option at all. In all honesty, she'd been so distracted looking after Elisa that her mind had just sort of . . . forgotten to process what had happened to Cammie and Zach.

Elisa went pale. She knew more than she was saying, Liz was sure. If only Liz had packed her patented truth serum.

Instead, she channeled her best Bex impersonation.

"I'm not going to ask you what's going on, because I'm sure it's classified, but one of my best friends is in real danger, and we can't just sit here and wait. So either you call your people or I will call mine."

Her words took Elisa aback. Liz grinned internally. Liz hadn't been this impressed with herself since she'd rappelled into sublevel two junior year at Gallagher and hadn't died.

"I'll make contact," Elisa agreed grudgingly.

Liz nodded. "You do that."


	15. Chapter 15

They weren't supposed to be there, but that had never stopped Bex in the past. In fact, being where she wasn't supposed to be was something so ingrained in every fiber of Bex's being that it didn't even make her nervous anymore.

It was just a townhouse apartment in Hyde Park, near the University of Chicago. Rented by an Elisa Solokov, who, Macey's research revealed, was a macroeconomics PhD candidate at the University of Chicago and the only daughter of Russia's top nuclear scientist. Macey's research also revealed that Elisa had purchased a number of cosmetics from Macey's company over the years, but none from Macey's new Undercover Beauty line (just because you're infiltrating an enemy base doesn't mean you can't look fabulous, and it can sure come in handy when your lipstick also works as a tranquilizer).

The utilities were paid by the record land owner, who also owned a bookstore that paid its taxes and wasn't a front for anything (they'd checked).

Elisa's apartment looked a lot like Bex's - Elisa clearly had more important things to do in her life than clean. On the desk, Bex found a pretty significant amount of what appeared to be research on a series of relatively financially unstable countries. Also a lot of economics textbooks. While much of the research was boring (Bex had always hated Countries of the World) none of it was illegal.

Bex tracked signs of a struggle. At least two people had been involved in a relatively nasty fight based on the floor scuffs and off-skew furniture.

It was Macey who found Cam's emergency signal under the couch, a mostly crushed cheap heart necklace Bex had seen Cam wear on several occasions. Cam had to have been in big trouble to call in that much backup.

 _What were Cam and Zach even doing here?_ Bex supposed she could try to strong-arm it out of Townsend, but she doubted she would be successful. Townsend had never liked Bex, despite the many joint task forces she'd headed in the past ten years, and the wins (by association) she'd delivered to the CIA. Maybe it went back to that time in London, eleven years ago, when they'd teamed up to find Cammie and had failed. Maybe it went all the way back to Townsend's totally unwarranted dislike of her parents. Bex knew she would never really know.

Besides, the recovery team hadn't even been deployed yet. Plus Bex and Macey weren't even assigned to the recovery team. And although Bex would have loved to tell Townsend exactly what she thought about both of those decisions in sixteen different languages, she knew it would be more prudent and effective to proceed without CIA support.

Cam and Zach were in trouble. Bex felt it in her gut. And there was no way that the CIA or MI6 or any one of the five-hundred terrorist organizations Bex had clearance to know about was going to stop her from getting to her best friends.

Maybe they were protecting Elisa. That was Bex's first thought. Someone could get a lot of leverage from taking someone's child, although you'd never guess that from Townsend's response to the present situation. Bex knew Townsend hadn't raised Zach. Bex figured Townsend probably saw Catherine Goode every time she looked at Zach. Bex hypothesized that Townsend would probably react differently if one of Abby's children were missing. But as she considered Townsend's cold demeanor on the phone, and curt response to her request for information, Bex fumed anyway.

"There's some pretty nasty drug residue on this glass," Macey offered, still underneath the couch. "The DNA isn't Cam's though." Macey waved Liz's patented keychain/pocket DNA analyzer in the air.

"You have Cam's DNA?" Bex asked, actually surprised.

"Duh." Macey rolled her eyes. "I lived with you all for two and a half years. I knew I'd have to track at least one of you down eventually. It's a woman though," Macey continued. "Maybe the tenant."

Bex tried to pull together a story in her head. What if Zach had heard that this girl was in danger. Townsend would order protection. The girl went to school with Cammie (as much as Cammie actually "went to school"), so she'd be the obvious choice. Maybe the threat Cammie had tried to protect the girl from had just been too strong. Maybe Cammie and Zach had just underestimated their opponents.

"Hey, did you see this stuff?" Macey was thumbing through the research on the desk, sorting it into piles. "It's kind of . . . unusual. There's a lot of weird stuff here for an economist." Macey paused on a picture of a middle-aged woman. "I was involved in a sting on this one. I convinced her to let me open a really dangerous chemical plant in exchange for "accidentally" leeching chemicals into the water of her dissidents' camps." She paused on another photo. "Bex, these are all really unstable regimes. Why would an economist be studying them?"

"And what about this?" Macey held up an equation. "Weird, right?" Bex couldn't argue. "Call me crazy, but I don't think Elisa's a good guy here."

Bex pulled security footage then. There weren't any cameras near the house, but satellite footage showed a white van leaving the premises right around the time Cammie's emergency signal had sounded. Bex could make out two large men in the grainy footage.

"That's them!" Macey squealed in shock and horror as the image changed, and Zach and Cammie were being forced into the back of the van.

"We just have to follow that van." _And take down two highly trained professional Operatives_ , thought Bex. And then she knew something was missing.

"Where's Elisa?" Bex asked, suddenly realizing at least one of the involved parties had disappeared without a trace. Bex flipped through satellite photos, trying to find what had become of the girl, but she stopped when her eyes landed on a familiar face.

"Liz?!" Bex and Macey exclaimed together.

"What the bloody hell was Liz doing here?"

Macey didn't have an answer. But Liz was in the satellite images, and Elisa was not.

"Maybe she went out through the back," Macey offered."The trees are pretty thick."

A look of sheer panic crossed Bex's face as she raced into the hallway and tore open the utility closet.

Bex's sigh of relief was audible. Bex had totally expected Liz's body to be stuffed in that closet. But it wasn't. So maybe Liz was safe.

"We need to call this in," Macey was firm. "I don't think they know Liz is missing too."

Bex shook her head. "We find Cammie and Zach, and Elisa Solokov, we find Liz," she said firmly. "We call Townsend and you get reassigned to a real boardroom with no fun spy stings, and I end up in the MI6 bunker pushing papers. If I'm lucky."

Macey nodded. "We're their best hope."

"Yeah."

"Well, then there's only one thing to do," Macey said hesitantly. "Follow that van."

Bex nodded. "Follow that van."

* * *

 **AN: Hi, everyone! So excited to share two new chapters with you this weekend. Hope you enjoy!**


	16. Chapter 16

I felt Zach's breathing slow. I felt him focus, drawing himself up to the task at hand. I'd watched it so many times that I didn't even need to see him now to know. I could visualize the way his shoulders straightened, the way his eyes darkened, the hard set of his jaw.

My senses were instantly sharper. As the adrenaline kicked in, my mind slowed, my thoughts stopped. Nothing else mattered. Just me and Zach and how we were going to escape.

They hadn't been armed before. They hadn't been armed, and I guess I shouldn't have assumed they still wouldn't be.

I felt their steely gaze sweeping over us, deciding where to start.

"Where's the algorithm?" One man asked, finally. Of course we didn't answer.

"Who do you work for?" I hate this question. I just really don't know why international operatives even bother with asking it. What self-respecting spy is ever going to give up that kind of information without some serious persuasion/torture. Needless to say, we remained silent.

"How many others of you are out there?"

"Who has the rest of Ms. Solokov's formula?"

"Who. Has. Ms. Solokov."

 _She'd gotten away_ , I thought. I couldn't begin to guess how, but Elisa had gotten away. I didn't have time to wonder at that moment whether her escape was good news or bad news for us.

"I've seen the formula," I offered. "You're too early. It doesn't work."

For a half second, I could feel the man glance at his colleague, questioning. Trying to decide which one of us was lying.

"That's not what I heard." He'd decided it was me.

"Sure, Elisa's been testing it," I admitted. "But it's far from foolproof."

"Reconsider your answer." The man lunged forward and grabbed me by my hair, which honestly would have hurt even without the head injury, but with the head injury it hurt really _really_ badly.

So I reconsidered. I took the blade I'd kept hidden in my hand and stuck it into his wrist. He screamed in pain.

The other man couldn't see what had happened, and as he rushed to assist, he passed within a foot of Zach. There was a sickening snap, followed by a solid thud. The man behind me dropped my hair.

I flung the blindfold off and to see that Zach had wasted no time taking on the dark-haired man, who, despite copious bleeding, was matching Zach blow for blow. The ponytail man was on the floor, dead.

I leapt onto the dark-haired man's back, trying to pull him off balance. My head was throbbing. My vision was swimming. My ability to execute pretty much any offensive maneuver with any kind of accuracy was seriously compromised. But I couldn't give up. So I did my best Liz impersonation and hung on tight.

At some point in the approximately ten seconds between the time I stabbed the dark haired man, and the time Zach effortlessly snapped the neck of his colleague, and the time the dark-haired man realized he was going to have to fight us both, he decided not to play fair.

I saw the dark-haired man reach for his gun in slow motion. I dragged him off balance with all of my weight as he took aim at Zach. I yelled. I kicked him in the back of his ribs with all of my might. I barely heard the gunshot, but I saw Zach fall backward in horrifying clarity.

The spy in me took over, as I wrenched the gun away and clocked our attacker on the top of the head, though my aim was incredibly shaky. We both fell.

I was at Zach's side in a matter of seconds, but it felt like eternity. The bullet had passed through his upper thigh, but somehow managed to miss the femoral artery and the majority of the bone. There was still a lot of damage. There was still a lot of bleeding. Zach's face clenched in pain as I hauled him to his feet and carried the majority of his weight.

"We have to get out of here," I said firmly, mostly to myself.

They'd left the door open, but I saw quickly that it wouldn't do us much good.

The structure wasn't a cellar, it was an icehouse, at the bottom of a small valley, and though the sun was brilliant outside, there was nothing for miles but pine trees. Our captors must have hiked from their van, and it could have been in any direction.

I didn't know what time it was. I didn't know where the sun should be. I was dizzy and nauseous and sweating and dragging a seriously injured Zach, while our enemies no doubt bore down upon us.

I don't remember what happened next. Somehow, my survival instincts took over and forced my body on. Somehow, we ended up under a thick fir tree on the top of a hill. We hadn't gone far, maybe a mile from the icehouse, but the tree provided good cover and some shield from the wind, and I couldn't take another step.

I laid Zach gently under its branches and curled up beside him.

And then the girl in me took over. And then I cried. And then I slept.

* * *

 **AN: Mwahaha today I'm a writer and no one is safe...**

 **Thanks for joining me! Tune back in on Saturday for the next installment. I so enjoy sharing my writing with all of you.**


	17. Chapter 17

Zach was staring at me when I woke. His face was pale, but his green eyes were soft, studying me.

"You can't sleep Gallagher Girl. I know you hit your head hard again. You can't sleep."

He kissed my forehead. It was dark now, I could tell, and the wind whipped outside. But in the center of our tree, the air was still, and Zach's eyes were boring into mine, concerned.

As my own eyes started to focus, I took stock of Zach. At some point, before my body collapsed, I had bound his leg in the fabric of our blindfolds. I didn't remember doing it. I didn't even remember grabbing the blindfold as we fled. But the survivor in me had dragged us here. The survivor in me had stopped Zach's bleeding. The survivor in me had overcome every single other one of my needs to protect us.

"You hit your head too," I said softly. "And you were shot."

"Yeah, I kind of noticed," he tried to joke. He stroked my face gently, like I might break at any moment. "You saved me, Gallagher Girl."

He was wrong. I'd made a foolish choice not to run, and I'd put him in danger, yet again. But instead, I just smiled and said, "You helped."

"Yeah," he grimaced. "Sorry about that." I knew he was talking about the guard he'd killed.

"It was probably necessary," I admitted. "And very well done." Ten years as an international spy had, for better or worse, lessened my aversion to killing bad people, but I knew Zach still struggled with his past, still worried I'd see him differently because he'd been trained as an assassin.

"Bex would tell you it's sort of my signature move," he confessed. I didn't want to think about what that meant.

"Are you okay?" he needed to be sure.

"Yes," I assured. My head still hurt, but less so. My vision was returning to normal. I would be alright.

I considered our surroundings. "Where are we?"

"I think North," Zach answered, bothered. "It was mostly dark when I came to. I'm going to go look around more thoroughly." He tried to pull himself to his feet, but barely made it halfway before he gave up.

" _I'll_ go," I said firmly.

"Stay _here_ , Gallagher Girl," Zach pleaded. "You don't know what's out there."

I didn't, but I had to find out. So I kissed him and slid under the branches of our tree.

The world was wide open, fir trees in every direction, and not a cloud in the sky. I studied the position of the stars. Zach was right, we were definitely north of Chicago. But not by too far. Based on our surroundings, the stars, and my knowledge of Midwestern geography, we were somewhere in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, or the Ottawa National Forest, at the northernmost end of Wisconsin and Michigan. It would be too difficult to transport prisoners across the Canadian border, especially if you didn't need them alive. No doubt they'd brought us here to interrogate, with no intention of taking us further.

As I studied our surroundings, I realized we were only a mile or so from the icehouse. It was a miracle no one had found us yet. We had to move, before our luck ran out. But at least I knew which direction to move in.

"We need to go," I said as I ducked back under the tree. "And now is the best time."

The night was still, and dark. With significant effort, I was able to help Zach to his feet. I snapped a large branch off the tree for Zach to use as a walking stick. It took us an hour to go half a mile, but by the end of the night we'd gone three miles further. That was the good news. Zach didn't complain once, didn't ask to rest, ever, but I could tell he was in a lot of pain. The bad news was that there was still no sign of civilization. We settled under another tree.

"Gallagher Girl, this isn't going to work." Zach looked even paler, and I could tell his wound was bleeding again. "You have to go on alone."

I shook my head. "You just need to rest," I assured. "You've lost a lot of blood, and I wouldn't have moved you if we hadn't been so close."

I'd gathered some edible plants as we walked, and we ate them then. Zach looked so weak.

In all the years we'd spent together, I had never seen him like this. Always he was the professional: strong, determined, quick-witted – untouchable. The man who'd tailed me for a year to make sure I was safe. The man who'd faced death head-on so that I would live. In that moment, I couldn't shake the feeling that our roles had changed.

I scooped his head into my lap then, and stroked his wavy brown hair.

"Mmmmm," he mumbled, the corners of his mouth twitching up in a smile. "I could die right here and that would be okay."

"Zachary Goode, don't you dare say that," I ordered. He laughed a little.

"I might be dead already," he teased. "I think I see an angel."

"If you won't stop talking like that I will make you sleep on the ground." That shut him up. He sighed.

"You should go, Gallagher Girl. You're much faster without me. You're much safer without me. You can make contact and . . ."

"We are not having this discussion."

"Cam," his eyes met mine, pleading. "Please go. The CIA is looking for us, they'll come for me."

I looked away. I'd left Zach to die at his own urging once before, and that moment haunted me still. I had sworn to myself that it would never happen again.

"We. Are. Not. Having. This. Discussion."

"Cam..."

"No, Zach," I argued. "No."

He was too tired to fight me. He slept, and I worried. Zach was bleeding again. His blood was soaking through the blindfolds, so I took off my sweater and tied it tightly around his wound. He didn't stir. I shivered.

His skin was hot to the touch, and I suspected some infection was racing through his veins. I hadn't been able to clean the wound before I'd passed out. I hadn't been able bandage it properly. All I could do was hope that the indestructible Zach I knew could fight off whatever microbes were attacking him right now. And worry, because in that moment, he looked far from indestructible.

I tried to stay calm. We'd walked three miles south. It was impossible to know how much further we'd have to go. I knew the federal forests in this part of the country were massive, spanning more than 3,000 square miles together, and measuring approximately 300 miles north to south. We could be anywhere. Panic started to flood my veins as I considered that it was possible I could run full out for two days before I reached the other end. I forced myself to think rationally.

We had options. I knew there was some truth to Zach's words, no matter how badly I wanted to ignore them. But we still had options. The CIA was looking for us, I was sure of that (although someone else was probably looking for us too). We could wait to be rescued. We could wait for Zach to improve. There was still time.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for joining me for Chapter 17! Hope you're still reading and enjoying! I've got some exciting stuff coming up for you in the next few installments.**


	18. Chapter 18

**AN: I don't want to sound presumptuous, but you might wanna grab a tissue ;) Thank for joining me on this adventure. See you back here Saturday for the next installment!**

* * *

By the next afternoon, I knew whatever time we'd had was running out. Zach looked worse than ever when he woke, and knew with certainty that his wound was infected. While I wasn't surprised that the bullet had impacted some tendons and ligaments, I knew Zach's condition should have been improving, not worsening. I knew it was a miracle that the bullet hadn't nicked his femoral artery, or shattered the bone itself, but in that moment, nothing felt lucky.

Zach looked deathly pale, and his skin nearly burned my hands as I touched him. He was sweating heavily, despite the chilly air. I made a high risk venture outside of the tree to find some water, but it did nothing to cool him. So I held him in my arms, waiting for him to wake, willing him to improve.

"I love you, Gallagher Girl," When Zach finally opened his eyes, he smiled up at me, and for a moment I thought he might be delirious. But then his gaze grew serious and focused in on face. "I'm pretty sure this is goodbye," he said softly, "and you need to know how I love you."

"Don't talk like that," I warned. "You're going to be fine." But I was not at all convinced, and he heard it in my voice.

He shook his head, sadly. "Spy," he whispered, barely able to raise his hand to point at himself.

I couldn't help it. I started to cry.

"No, Cammie," he smiled. He harnessed all of his strength to reach up and stroke my cheek, wiping a tear away. "It's okay. You're alive."

"Go," he whispered, his eyes locked with mine. "Don't look back. You have to live," the words came slowly, like every syllable was a struggle, and I couldn't be sure whether he was really with me, or whether the fever was causing him to hallucinate. "Loving you . . . has been the greatest privilege of my life."

"I'm not leaving you," I pleaded with him. "And you're not leaving me."

I pulled him as close to me as I could, savoring the feeling of his skin against mine, pressing my lips to his forehead even though the heat almost scorched me, touching every inch of him, every curve and muscle and hollow and scar that I had memorized so long ago.

"Joe," he whispered, finally. "What would Joe say?"

Leave it to Zach to leverage the wisdom of Joe Solomon at a time like this.

I wanted to say that Joe Solomon would second my decision. That Joe Solomon would never let me leave his adoptive son dying and delirious on the side of a mountain in the woods. I wanted to argue, but I knew it wasn't true.

"Cammie," he whispered. "What would Joe say?"

I hated the words as they slid past my lips, involuntarily "He'd say I'm doubling our chances."

Zach smiled, satisfied. "Run," he whispered. "And don't look back."

And then his eyes closed, and I felt him drift back to sleep in my arms.

There are moments of your life that change everything, choices that you make that haunt you forever.

Mine wasn't the first time I killed a man, at Joe Solomon's cabin during my senior year at Gallagher. It wasn't the moment I found my father's grave, after retracing my steps from the summer I forgot. It wasn't the moment I chose to run away from Gallagher and search for the Circle of Cavan. Or the moment I agreed to go to a high security prison to visit a known member of the circle. It wasn't even the night I watched Gallagher burn.

The moment that had haunted me for the last eleven years was that moment in the Tombs at Blackthorne, when Zach had looked at me and told me to run. When Zach had aimed a gun at a box marked explosives, and mouthed the word "goodbye."

Eleven years, and I could still feel the heat of the flames, still feel the smoke filling my lungs, still feel the pounding of my legs as I ran and ran and tried not to think. I could still hear Catherine Goode telling me she'd take me to my father. I could still feel the rage that flooded through me, how badly I'd wanted to kill her in that moment.

I still wonder what would have happened if I had.

Perhaps others would have lived. Perhaps I never would have been tortured by the Circle. Perhaps I wouldn't have terrifying dreams when I closed my eyes at night. Perhaps I would have been a different person.

But perhaps I never would have found my father. Perhaps the Circle of Cavan would still be alive and well. Perhaps I wouldn't have been capable of any of the good things I'd done in the eleven years since.

Perhaps I would have been a different person.

Sometimes those moments fly past, and you have to make a decision in a split second, only briefly pausing to consider the consequences. Like that night in the Tombs, when I'd chosen to run.

Sometimes they crawl, and you consider your choice carefully, measure it from every angle. Like the night I left to chase the Circle of Cavan on my own. You know your choice will forever change you. But you choose it anyway.

I held Zach until the darkness fell. He didn't wake again. I gathered as many pine needles as I could and spread them over him like a blanket. I held my lips to his and kissed them gently, tears streaming down my face and over his cheeks.

"We should have gotten married." They weren't the words I expected to say, and yet they fell past my lips, echoing in the stillness. I knew Zach couldn't hear them. I knew Zach probably didn't even know I was there. But I said them anyway.

"I love you," I whispered, through my tears. "This isn't the end." The words sounded false, even to me, but I had to try, one last time, to convince myself.

And then I did what the spy in me had been trained to do from the time I was twelve. I crawled out from under the tree. I snapped a branch, so that I could find it again. I let my thoughts fade away. And I ran.

The entire time knowing I would never forgive myself.


	19. Chapter 19

I knew I should pace myself, but instead I sprinted through the forest, hoping my adrenaline would make up for anything I lacked in stamina. I leapt logs and ducked branches, dodged trees and skipped creeks (after pausing to drink, dehydration is not something you want to chance when you have to run through a 3,000 square mile forest, let me tell you).

I tried to outrun the faint smell of smoke that filled my nose. I tried to outrun the panic that was starting to flood through my veins. I tried to outrun the image of Zach, feverish and unconscious that was burned into my brain.

The night dragged on. I oriented myself using the stars. I snapped branches every few thousand feet to find my way back. I used every technique I'd ever learned for leaving a trail that was identifiable to your friends but invisible to your enemies. Still, the silence of the forest left far too much space for the noise of my thoughts.

I knew there were small towns that were hidden in the forest, little parcels of land the government hadn't been able to purchase. I followed the path of what appeared to be an old logging road, two narrow, barely paved lanes winding through the brush, hoping eventually it would lead me to help.

They had to be looking for us by now. Even if Townsend had been hesitant to authorize a full scale search for a few days, even if my Mother and Joe Solomon hadn't been able to twist his arm into committing the full force of the clandestine services to a recovery operation, surely _someone_ was looking for us by now. Three days had passed, I thought, maybe more. It was difficult to account for the time I'd been unconscious in the van, and at the icehouse. They were looking. They were coming. They had to be coming.

I focused on that hope as I ran, trying desperately not to count how many minutes I'd been running, how many hours Zach had been lying alone, on that cold fall night.

There had to be a town. I'd been running for four hours, and there had to be a town.

But there was nothing, so I ran, and ran, until thin streaks of light started to sneak up from the horizon. Until another day began to dawn. Until I couldn't feel my heart breaking anymore.

The spy in me knew I should have hidden as the sun rose. The spy in me knew someone was still looking for us. But all the woman in me knew was that Zach was in danger, and I had to get to help as soon as possible.

It was a risk, of course, but it was worth it. At least until I heard the voices. At first my heart soared, but then I recognized the voice of the dark-haired man. Two other voices mixed with his, a woman and another man.

I forced myself to remember that Catherine Goode was dead. That I'd seen her die ten years ago. Because every fiber in my exhausted body was certain her voice was winding toward me through the trees.

They were talking about us. They were trying to figure how we could have gotten so far when we were both injured, and the forest was wild, unforgiving. They were trying to figure out where Elisa could be.

"Maybe the CIA has her," the woman said. "They'd like to have that equation too, you know."

She was right. The CIA has executed a number of covert regime changes over the years. Elisa's formula could be useful both offensively and defensively. I knew Townsend would have loved to get his hands on it.

I crawled through the brush, trying to identify the other two voices, trying to memorize their faces. The three agents hovered around a low fire, packing gear onto the back of an ATV and folding up a tent.

"We have most of the formula," one man offered, "But we're clearly missing a piece."

"We can't go back to that apartment," the dark-haired man said. I noticed the bruises that swelled over the entire left side of his face, and the thick bandage wrapped around his wrist. "It's swarming with operatives, CIA and Interpol both."

 _Interpol._ My brain instantly flew to the woman with the baby carriage I'd seen in Grant Park right after I'd met Elisa.

"I just don't know how the girl got away so quickly," the dark-haired man puzzled. "She's an academic, she's not even trained."

"Maybe the two agents we caught with her taught her something. Maybe they were helping her sell the formula."

 _Sell the formula?_ My mind raced. Elisa had been trying to sell the formula. The dark-haired man had tried to drug her and take it. Why spend good money when you know you can overpower the academic and run?

He'd known Elisa was untrained, and he hadn't expected Zach and me to protect her.

But he'd made us in the park that day.

Or at least he'd made someone.

 _The woman with the baby carriage_ , my mind screamed. And as I replayed that evening in my mind, I could see that the man had startled at her, not at us. He was surprised that his clandestine meeting was disrupted by _Interpol_. But he apparently thought Zach and I had gone rogue and were helping Elisa sell the formula. Or were trying to get it for ourselves.

Elisa wasn't trained. Elisa was an academic who'd been developing a dangerous predictive formula, for an international governmental organization that wanted to use it to predict, and presumably, prevent turmoil. At some point, Elisa must have learned that it could also be used to create political chaos, and that bad people would pay a lot of money for that information.

And suddenly all of the pieces seemed to fit. The way Elisa had been difficult to approach. Her unprovoked distrust of me. The way she'd been deeply nervous on her date with Luke. The way she'd panicked when she'd run into me at the coffee shop. Her instant conclusion that I'd taken her phone. Her foolishness in finalizing the sale in the supposed privacy of her apartment.

Elisa wasn't a spy. Elisa was an Interpol asset who'd gone rogue.

"We need to get back out there," the woman instructed. "By James' account, both the agents were injured, they can't have gone too far. Finding them is our best chance at finding the girl."

I moved through the brush, slowly, carefully, until I had edged at least a mile south and a mile east of the camp. Then I ran. My legs churned the ground with all my might. They were still looking for us. They were still looking for us, and Zach was lying helpless and half-dead under a tree three miles from where we'd been held. I knew I was racing against the clock.

It was all I could do to force myself onward. The sun burned my skin, despite the cool fall air. The wind whipped my face. Dusk began to fall. And that was when I saw it: a small house, rising on the horizon. And another beyond it. A _town_.

A town where there was sure to be a phone. A fresh round of adrenaline surged through my veins as I raced toward the horizon. My lungs burned, my legs felt impossibly weak, my hands shook, my vision swam, and I couldn't even think about the impossible number of miles I'd just traveled.

But there was a town. So I didn't feel pain or hunger or fear or exhaustion. In that moment, all I felt was hope.

* * *

 **AN: You've gotten some answers this chapter, though probably not the one you were waiting for (I know, I know, but I love suspense far too much for that). Wednesday, however, I can promise you the one chapter written from Zach's POV. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, I so enjoy sharing my words with you.**


	20. Chapter 20

**AN:** **The Zach chapter, as promised. It's long, but I hope you'll take the time to read all of it. I think this is one of my favorite things I've ever written. Approximately 95% of the dialogue credited to Ally Carter.**

* * *

Zachary Goode had never met anyone like Cameron Morgan before. She was beautiful, sure, in that low-key girl-next-door kind of way, but she was also talented. If Zach hadn't been so fascinated with Cammie, he knew he would have lost her on the national mall that day. But he'd flirted, and she'd let him. She'd seen him.

Cammie had stood there, in front of those ruby slippers, and seen _him_. And for a boy who'd felt invisible his entire life, that was something. At least he'd felt invisible before he'd come to the Gallagher Academy, where testosterone-deprived girls drooled over him at breakfast, tried to corner him in the hallways, wanted to beat him up in protection and enforcement class.

But Zach only saw one. The rest were just noise.

Cammie saw _him_. And nothing else. _No one_ else. It was unfathomable. Zach couldn't imagine it would last very long, not with the things Zach knew. Not with all the people who knew Zach's secret.

Even Rachel Morgan knew about his mother. Zach could see it in the way she looked at him, carefully appraising, at each instance, whether or not he could be trusted. Had he not found Joe in December, and told him that Cammie could be in danger, had he not begged Joe to help him leave the Circle of Cavan, he would never have made it inside the walls of the Gallagher Academy. No one ever would have trusted him to be this close.

Eventually, someone would tell Cammie. Eventually she would learn that her father was likely dead at his mother's hands. Eventually, Zach knew, Cammie would look at him and see _her_. The same way everyone else did. The same way everyone else always would.

But there was time yet. They were leaving the Gallagher Academy, for now, but Zach knew, in his heart, that this wasn't the end. The clandestine world was too small. He'd find her again. He'd always know where she was.

And then she was right behind him, making small talk about his luggage, and the bruises, and though he tried to be cute, tried to quip back, there was something he'd wanted to do the entire semester, but had never quite found the nerve. And in that moment he couldn't think of anything else.

So he called after her, and she spun to face him. And Zach didn't care that all of those nosy Gallagher girls were staring at him. He didn't care that his classmates would mock him mercilessly the entire ten hour journey back to Blackthorne. He pulled Cammie close to him, and he dipped her, in the middle of the lobby. And he kissed her.

Then he smiled, and said softly, "I always finish what I start." And then he left. He could feel her eyes on him as he stepped out of the Gallagher Academy. He could feel her lips on his the entire drive back. So he replayed every moment of that kiss in his head, on repeat, and memorized exactly what if felt like to have someone truly see _him_.

And then she was standing in an alley, on election night, shivering, and Zach found himself slipping off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders. Sure, his hands may have lingered a moment longer than necessary, but he'd been watching Cammie from a distance all year (except for that time she'd found him at the rally, and their less than covert moment on the train) and he needed to assure himself that she was there. That she was safe. He needed to touch her, and know.

"Why were you in Boston?" Cammie demanded, and Zach found himself wishing, not for the first time, that Cammie's skills didn't live up to her reputation. Of course she had seen him in Boston. It hadn't been Zach's best disguise. And he had lingered a moment too long, then, too.

"There are things I can't tell you, Gallagher Girl," he heard himself say. And he knew it wasn't true. He _could_ tell her. He could tell her that she wasn't safe, that she maybe would never be safe. He could tell her that he was one of them. That she shouldn't trust him, shouldn't even be standing alone in this alley with him. But he didn't. Zach knew Cammie deserved a few more moments of peace, before the war began.

He wanted so badly to kiss her again. To hold her in his arms and feel her lips move with his, and forget about everything. Forget about the Circle, forget about his mother, forget that every day of Cammie's life from here out would be a fight. He wanted to tell her that he'd fight with her, fight for her. But instead, Zach looked at the brilliant, beautiful spy-girl who was starting to pin down the truth, and said softly, "there are some things you don't want to know."

And then he saw the van. And then everything changed.

And then he was on an ice rink, in London, watching Cammie through a pack of boys on skates who couldn't keep their eyes off of Rebecca Baxter. A pack of boys who had no idea what they were missing. Zach almost forgot why he was there as he watched her spin, watched her watch him. Her eyes locked with his, and he knew she'd seen him. Of course she had. Cammie Morgan always saw him.

"Happy New Year, Gallagher Girl," he heard himself saying. Zach studied her. She was more reserved than he remembered, not sure how to approach him. He couldn't blame her. His cover had been almost blown in DC, and if anyone would have noticed, it was Cammie.

 _DC._ His heart hurt at the thought of it. Yet here she was, in one piece, despite all odds. Surrounded by some of the best spies in the world. Spies who didn't even notice him. Spies who _should have_ noticed him.

And yet he couldn't help but try to lighten the mood. "I used to have a warmer jacket," he joked, "but then I gave it to some girl."

"That wasn't very smart," she quipped back. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend it was a normal date. That they were just two normal people, out ice-skating and getting to know each other. Except that Cammie was anything but normal. And Zach was sure she would never truly know him.

"Besides, it looked better on you," he smiled. He wanted to kiss her so badly in that moment. To give in, and pretend that they could be together, without the weight of his world crashing into hers, and totally throwing it off of its axis. But he knew it was a foolish thought, so he held himself back.

And then Zach was standing in the Roseville town square and, unexpectedly, looking into the colored-contact covered eyes of Macey McHenry. This was all wrong. He'd been thinking about Cammie for days, aching to touch her, to know she was okay.

"I need to see her," he pleaded. He knew she was listening. She would never let her friends risk themselves like this while she stayed safe inside the mansion's walls. And he had to see her, especially after London. Especially knowing that Joe Solomon was on the run, accused of helping the one organization he would have traded his life, without hesitation, to destroy.

The same organization Zach would be accused of helping if he were caught with Cammie right then. But it didn't matter. He had to see her.

But she knew. Of course she knew, she was Cameron Morgan, after all. So she asked him the question he'd been dreading since the day they'd met.

"Did the Circle recruit you too?"

He wanted to lie to her. How could he possibly explain that he'd been born into this, groomed for it from the very beginning? That he'd risked everything to walk away. That he'd continue to risk everything. He couldn't, and he knew the words would sound false on his lips. So he muttered "Not exactly," and left it at that.

She couldn't let it go. It was infuriating and intoxicating at the same time, the way her mind worked. She was determined to see the whole picture in that instant, even if she shouldn't. Even if it meant learning things Zach didn't ever want her to know.

Zach had hated luring her to Roseville, away from her guards, away from the safety of the mansion, but he needed to see her. He needed to see her and touch her and know that she was safe.

"I'm fine," she assured him. But Zach wasn't. Zach knew he would never be fine again. Not as long as his highly tuned brain continued to run through every second in that alley in DC. Every second where he might have better protected her. Every chance to avoid that moment when she'd witnessed his mother's goon refuse to shoot him.

And then they were lying on a ridge above Blackthorne, and Zach was begging her to stay behind. Zach knew it would be futile, but he had to try. He'd always regret it if he didn't try. And then she was kissing him, like she might never have the chance to do it again, and for a moment he almost forgot why they were there. He just lost himself, memorizing every detail of that moment, mapping out the way her lips moved with his, the way her hands ran through his hair, the feel of her skin on his skin.

And then he was telling her to run. He was saving her from his mother and telling her to run. For a moment he'd been terrified she wouldn't, but she'd been trained by the best, and her survival instincts took over. "Goodbye," he whispered, as she set off back into the darkness of the tombs. And as he aimed at the explosives, he thought of that kiss on the hill. If he was going to die, he wanted his last moments to be filled with her, overflowing with the fire between them.

He didn't remember the explosion. He didn't remember taking cover, but he must have. He didn't remember pulling Joe from the wreckage and somehow taking him to Gallagher, but he must have done that too.

And then he was begging her to run away with him. Begging her to leave the weight of their worlds behind, and just be together. But she didn't take him up on it. Of course she couldn't, he knew that. He'd known it before he'd even asked.

Instead she left alone, and he had never felt more broken, frenzied, terrified, crazy.

And then she was home, at Gallagher, but it was all wrong. Her hair, her face, the ghosts that flashed behind her eyes. She'd learned the whole truth that summer, and Zach knew it the moment he saw her.

And then she was running through a narrow passageway, and Zach was chasing her with all his might. "Don't _do_ that," he grabbed her. "Don't ever run away again." Maybe his tone seemed desperate, but he _was_ desperate. She didn't know how he had searched for her, how he had blamed himself for her leaving. How he held himself responsible for every mark on her skin, for all the darkness he saw in her eyes. She didn't _know_.

"Are you afraid of me, Zach?" She asked, and he barely comprehended. How could he ever be afraid of her, his Gallagher Girl? Sure, Cammie was an exceptionally gifted and highly trained spy. Sure, she'd assembled that rifle in class as he could have, as if she'd been doing it since she was twelve. Sure, he'd seen her kill a man less than 24 hours ago, but the thought that he could _ever_ be afraid of Cammie was unfathomable.

And then he was holding her close, absorbing the vibrations of her shoulders as the tears finally came. Her father. The circle. His mother, if you could call her that. Zach had known, from the moment Cammie returned, that she had endured terrible things that summer. But now she knew it too. And watching her suffer nearly ripped Zach's heart in two.

Eventually, she fell asleep, and Zach tried to be content that she was blissfully unconscious and wrapped safely in his arms, if only for a little while. What he would give to be able to protect her from the truth, from the circle, from Catherine.

It was silly, he knew. Cammie was all the protection she needed. She was strong and brilliant and talented, and she had out-spied him at nearly every turn since the day they met. Cammie had hidden from some of the best operatives in the world that summer. But she had also gotten hurt. And Zach wasn't sure he would ever truly forgive himself for that.

And then he was kissing her, hard, against the rough stone walls of the back staircase, letting the feel of her seep back into his bones. Two months had seemed like an eternity, and Zach had ached for her touch since the moment he'd left in December.

"You were gone, you were gone so long," she whispered, and the feel of her breath on his skin burned him, in the best possible way. He had to hold her, to taste her, to never let her out of his sight again.

"I'm back now," Zach said. Oh, how he had missed her. Her hair and her smell and her lips and just knowing that she was safe an alive in his arms. Zach wished he could promise to never leave her again. It would be worth it, just to stay in this moment. But of course he couldn't, they both knew he couldn't.

And then Cammie was telling him about his mother, if you could call her that, and how she'd been at Cambridge.

"If she hurt you, I'll kill her," he said, and he ran his hands through her hair, over her neck, down her shoulders, just to check, as though he hadn't just held every inch of her moments before. If he'd have found Catherine, he'd have done it already. How could he not, knowing what she'd done, knowing what she intended to do.

"Don't say that, Zach," Cammie whispered.

"But I will, Cammie," and he had never been more certain. "Someday I will."

And then they were standing at the mouth of a cave in the arctic, staring out at the most stars Zach had ever seen, and he thought about how many times in the past two years he had stared up at those same stars and waited for some feeling that Cammie was looking at them too. That wherever she was, she was alive, and missing him.

"I only see you," he whispered into her hair, kissing the base of her neck. He held her closer and tried not to think, tried to memorize every inch of her, every bit of this moment. Tried to push away the knowledge that this could be their last night together, that tomorrow he could lose her forever. It was unbearable, so instead he just spun her to face him and said "You know this is crazy, right?"

It was crazy, and they both knew it, and Zach wondered, not for the first time, if he was just biding his time. If out-running his past was just an impossible dream. If, despite everything, he was destined to join them.

"You don't get to be afraid of yourself," she whispered. "Not now." It shouldn't have surprised him in the slightest. Cammie always saw him. _Him_ and no one else. And so he kissed her, knowing it could be the last time, drawing her into him, hoping that if he tried hard enough he might fuse his soul to hers, so that they could never be separated.

And then Zach was holding her on the front porch of a cabin in who-even-knew-where, and Cammie was asking " _Are_ there any good guys?" Zach turned her to face him, and, despite all of his fears that a part of him must be inherently bad just because Catherine's blood ran in his veins, he whispered, "You're looking at one."

"Let's not think about the future," Cammie said. "Let's just not think."

So Zach pulled her into to him, kissing her deeper and more urgently than he ever had before, and she rose to his touch, running her hands over his shoulders, and down his back. And then they were together, truly, and it was crazy and reckless, but it was right, somehow, every moment of it.

And then they were twirling in moonlight, watching their families become one, and Zach was sure he'd never felt more at peace. He'd never seen either Joe or Rachel smile like that before. He'd never felt so grateful to have Cammie, in her flowing periwinkle gown, whole and safe in his arms. As he stood beside Joe, and watched Cammie and Abby standing beside Rachel, he couldn't help but wonder if the world just might be turning around. For the first time, Zach felt optimistic about the future. _Their_ future.

"Do you remember that night at the safehouse?" Zach asked Cammie quietly. They had stolen away to the protection and enforcement barn as the celebration wound down, one of the few buildings that had somehow managed to survive the fire.

Zach still wasn't sure what made him say it. Maybe he'd had one too many glasses of champagne. Maybe it was the way the periwinkle played off the blue in Cammie's eyes, leaving him even more awestruck than usual. Maybe it was the way Cammie had danced all night, even though Zach knew her wounds were still hurting. Or maybe it was just the way this place had always brought the two of them together.

"Mhm," Cammie mumbled against his chest, her fingers reaching up and winding through his hair.

He took a breath. "When you said I'd be a good father. . . did you mean that?"

Cammie pushed away from his chest to twist her head up at him, so she could meet his eyes. "Of course I did." Her fingers stroked his cheek. "You're one of the bravest people I've ever known," she smiled. "And I don't think there is anything in this life, or the next, that could get between you and someone you love." Zach kissed her on the forehead, and she buried her head in his chest. "I should know, after all," she joked. "I've had a lot of first-hand experience in that department."

And then he was helping Cammie move to DC. Considering the fire, it shouldn't have been a large task, but Zach should have known Rachel Morgan Solomon never would send her only daughter off to college without all the appropriate pocket litter (most of which was far too large to ever fit in a pocket). Zach had moved into his own studio apartment in approximately ten minutes, but moving Cammie was different. Zach lugged box after box up the three flights to Cammie's tiny apartment near Georgetown's main campus, but it was worth it to see the excitement on her face as she embraced this new chapter.

And then Cammie was curled up in his arms, in his bed, at dawn, and the smell of her skin thrilled him, as he memorized every inch of her, every curve, every shadow, every hollow, every scar. In that moment, the world didn't exist, wasn't calling either of them to serve it. They were free to linger, wrapped up in each other, for as long as they wanted. And in Zach's opinion, forever would never be long enough.

And then Zach was watching her graduate from Georgetown, with Joe and Rachel beside him. And just for an instant, they felt like real people. Like a real family. Cammie smiled and posed for pictures. Zach kissed Cammie and gave her flowers (and none of the flowers were secretly weapons).

"I'm so proud of you, Georgetown Gallagher Girl," he whispered into her hair.

Rachel and Joe beamed, and slid Zach an envelope with two plane tickets to Pakistan (okay, not _totally_ normal).

And then Zach was kissing her, frantically, wrapping Cammie in his arms and aching to run his hands over every inch of her. Drinking her in like a spring in the desert. Swearing to himself that he'd never accept another deep-cover assignment again, never leave Cammie's side as long as he drew breath. The pain of being without her touch, without her smile, without _her_ for six entire months had been unbearable. The pain of not knowing where she was, how she was, that she was even safe had nearly killed him.

"You were gone so long," she whispered against his skin.

"Never again," he promised, and he meant every word. "No matter how they beg."

"I'm sorry we fought," she said quietly. "I've wanted to say that for so long."

Her words distracted him, just for a moment, from their glorious reunion. Pakistan. It was a painful blur, and he pushed it to the back of his head as he kissed her shoulders. It didn't matter now. And as much as Zach hated to admit it, he'd known all along that Cammie was right. His field instincts were always a bit compromised when it came to her.

"It's forgotten," he assured. And he ended the conversation by taking her lips firmly in his, pushing away any doubts she could possibly have that all was right between them.

And then they were moving to Chicago, and fighting, half-heartedly, about apartments and views, and landlords in other states. The doctors thought it might help Cammie's nightmares to have a change of scenery, and Zach would have followed her off the end of the earth if she asked.

And then he was standing with her back at Gallagher, in front of all of her friends, and their intertwined families, and asking her to be his wife. And she was saying yes.

Zach smiled at the thought, though he was no longer truly sure where he was, or even when he was. He was with her, and that was all that mattered.

And somewhere in the haze, she was whispering "I wish we'd gotten married." And Zach wished it too. He loved the thought of standing before their friends and families and making promises to each other. Promises Zach had made to himself long ago. To finally put a name to this hold Cammie had had on him since the very beginning.

"I love you," she said. "This isn't the end." Of course it wasn't. Zach didn't know what Cammie was talking about, but surely she should understand by now that the word "end" could never be applied to his feelings for her. Surely she must know that.

And then he was drifting and falling and staring into two faces he definitely had not expected to see. Two faces he knew were supposed to be across the world doing important things, not looking down at him in terror, as if he were fragile and helpless.

And then there was the thwak thwak thwak of helicopter blades. And then there was the prick of a needle. And then there was nothing.

* * *

 **AN:** **Thanks for joining me! I loved filling in the gaps in Cam and Zach's history, and I hope you enjoyed them too. See you back Saturday for the next installment.**


	21. Chapter 21

"We're here."

Bex and Macey had followed the satellite images of the van six hours north through Wisconsin, just south of the Northern Michigan border. And then they'd found it, parked on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

"Now what?" Macey asked, even though she knew the answer.

"We hike."

The woods were thick with pine trees, and Bex knew satellite images would no longer help them with their search. If Cammie and Zach's captors had left any traces, they were gone now.

In the time that had elapsed, they could have come and gone, leaving only the van in their wake. Cammie and Zach could have been moved by now. Or they could be dead. Bex's training forced her to consider the possibility.

Bex kept her eyes peeled for any signs of Cammie. Broken branches, strands of hair. Bex knew Cammie, and Cammie would have left a trail. But there was nothing, and as the hours passed, Bex forced herself to consider the possibility that she wasn't going to find them.

And then, after four hours of hiking through the brush, they saw it. A small icehouse, about 100 feet from what appeared to have been a cabin. The roof of the cabin was caved and the walls were tilting, but the icehouse was in perfect condition.

Bex and Macey exchanged a glance, and approached it, bracing against the uncertainty of what they might find. The door was swinging off its hinges, and the place looked abandoned.

Except for the body, a middle-aged man with a ponytail, neatly tucked against the back wall. Bex examined him, cautiously. His neck had been snapped, clean, approximately two days earlier.

"Zach," Bex said, hopeful for the first time in hours. "They were here. They fought. They were alive when they left."

"How do you know that?"

"Why take time to bury enemy operatives and not your own?" Bex shrugged.

Macey nodded, the reasoning seemed sound to her. But it was still a dead end, in the middle of a 3,000 square mile forest, too close to the Canadian border.

"Well we know one thing," Macey swallowed hard. "Either Cammie and Zach are incredibly valuable, or they're supposed to be dead right now."

Bex nodded. "You wouldn't take prisoners across the border," she agreed. "Unless they were really important."

They spread out then, and searched for clues. It was Macey who found a solitary drop of blood on the ground, about 2,000 feet from the icehouse.

"It's Zach's," she announced, equally excited and terrified, waving Liz's pocket DNA analyzer in the air.

"They were here," Bex nodded, slowly. "They were here."

"What would you do?" Macey asked. "You've narrowly escaped with your lives, Zach is wounded, and you're in the middle of an enormous federal forest. What would you do?"

"I'd hide," Bex said without skipping a beat. "They'd expect you to run, and if at least one of you is injured, you won't get very far very fast. It's better to hide and regroup, especially if their numbers are small."

Macey nodded. She stood in the door of the icehouse and squinted. She looked left. She looked right. Then she pointed.

"This way," she said firmly. "I'd go this way."

"The high ground," Bex agreed. "Me too."

It took them maybe another hour to locate the tree, and despite an obviously rushed effort to cover their tracks, Macey noted more of Zach's blood staining the ground. And a broken branch in the outside center of the tree, hanging like a signal flag.

"They were here," Macey said, certain. Bex nodded. "They were here, and Zach was hurt and now they're not."

"They could have rested and moved on," Bex offered.

"Or they could have been found." Bex hated Macey's words, but she knew they were true.

Macey considered for a moment. "I'd try to figure out where I was," she said thoughtfully. "Cammie and Zach have been in Chicago, what, three years?" Bex nodded. "They know the sky. It can't be too much different here."

Bex shivered. "South," she said firmly. "I'd run south." So they did. They ran five miles. Then they looped back and ran it again.

That was when Bex spotted the limb, snapped and hanging, in the middle of the tree, where no animal would have disturbed it.

And there was Zach, buried under a blanket of pine needles, so pale that, for a moment, Bex was sure he was dead. But he opened his eyes for an instant, just one, and relief flooded through her.

"Where's Cammie?" Macey asked, but Zach was already gone again. "Liz? Elisa?"

"Call a chopper," Bex ordered, taking in the scene. Zach had been bleeding, a lot, from a gunshot wound to his leg. His blood had soaked through two smaller pieces of fabric and what Bex was certain was Cammie's sweater. His skin was hot to the touch, and soaked with sweat. Bex could see the bruises rising on his arms, the large bump on the back of his head.

"We've got you," she whispered, hoping it wasn't too late. "We're going to get you home. You're going to be okay."

"What about Cammie?" Macey asked, and Bex shook her head.

"She'd want us to take him home," Bex was certain of it. "She's probably gone on to try and make contact. She'd never leave him here unless she didn't have any other options."

"What about Liz and Elisa?" Macey asked.

"They're not with Cammie," Bex knew the words were true as she said them. "She'd have left one with Zach while she went for help."

Macey's face hardened with concern for Liz, but she couldn't argue with Bex's assessment. They both knew Cammie, and Macey knew it would have almost killed her to leave Zach as they'd found him.

"We'll find them," Bex assured, as they loaded Zach onto the helicopter that had come to their aid. "We'll find all of them."


	22. Chapter 22

"Check on comms, Elisa, do you hear me?" Liz asked into her comms unit.

"I hear you," Elisa responded.

It was a beautiful fall day as Liz took Elisa to meet her colleagues in Grant Park. The park was full of people, tourists and families enjoying a beautiful afternoon. There was minimal police traffic. It seemed the perfect place for a clandestine meeting, but something about the entire situation felt off to Liz. Sure, she wasn't really a field operative, but she was still a Gallagher Girl.

The first agent Liz spotted was a young woman pushing a baby carriage, that Liz was fairly sure did not contain an actual baby.

Then there was a woman buying a newspaper at the newsstand, who flinched at a burst of static on her comms unit.

There was a man on a bench, trying too hard not to watch Elisa.

There was an older woman with a cane, who wasn't using it enough.

There was a man with mismatched socks, eating a hotdog even though it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner.

"Do you see your contact?" Liz asked. Elisa spun in the center of the park, not very covertly, and her eyes rested on the woman with the baby carriage. The woman smiled, and started to move toward Elisa.

So did the other four agents in the park.

"It's not a contact it's a grab team," Liz yelled into her comms unit. "It's a grab team, it's a grab team."

Liz sprinted to the center of the park and grabbed Elisa's arm, yanking Elisa along behind her, like tin cans on the back of a car. They raced from the park, using every countersurveillance measure in the book (literally, Liz had memorized that book.)

They were small, and fast, and Liz had also memorized the Chicago street grid on the plane. She turned down a side street without thinking and ducked into the underground pedway, then through a train station, and back to the street.

Liz found a busy chain hotel and rented a room under one of her aliases, sending Elisa to the restroom so she wouldn't be visible on the front desk security cameras. Liz taught Elisa to duck her head and let her long hair fall over her face as they made their way through the lobby and up to the room Liz had rented.

Liz swept the room for bugs, and, once she was satisfied, settled on the bed across from a very shaken Elisa.

Elisa wasn't a spy. Liz was 97.3% sure of it now. Elisa was an asset, and judging by the team sent to grab her, her handlers thought she had gone rogue. Elisa had a lot of explaining to do.

"Sit," Liz ordered, channeling her best Rachel Morgan. "Explain."

"I can't," Elisa started, "I don't know what's going on..."

"Try again," Liz said dismissively.

Elisa hesitated, considering her options. But she seemed to accept that her best option for getting out of this situation was through Liz.

"I developed an equation, based on my studies, to predict the downfall of unstable regimes. Interpol was going to buy it from me."

Liz shot Elisa her best Rachel Morgan "that's not the whole story and I know it" look.

"It turns out you can also use it to manipulate environmental factors and cause the downfall of unstable regimes."

She paused, but Liz knew there was more.

"And it turns out some people are willing to pay a lot of money for that formula."

"You were meeting with a buyer on the side." Liz asked, but it wasn't really a question. Elisa nodded.

"He drugged me. I'm sure he was going to just take the formula and run, but Cammie was there, in my apartment..." she shook her head. "And the man...it happened so fast."

Elisa started to cry, and Liz knew she was in way over her head. Liz patted her on the shoulder.

"That woman was my handler...They just tried to take me... I'm so scared..."

"It will be okay," Liz assured. "Let me make a call. I think I can convince my people to promise not to hurt you."

"Your people?"

"Have you ever heard of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women?"

Elisa shook her head.

"Well," Liz smiled. "You're about to."


	23. Chapter 23

Liz had arrived in the Gallagher Academy's circular driveway many times, but she'd never shown up with a walk-in before. Liz fought back a giggle as she heard the traces of the Code Red alarm ringing out from inside the mansion.

"Where are we?" Elisa asked.

"Home." A smile spread across Liz's face.

"Is it. . ." Elisa searched, confused. "A boarding school?"

"Something like that," Liz answered. "A lot of the faculty have. . . good connections," she finished. "Connections that can be helpful, given your situation."

Patricia Buckingham approached the limousine, cautiously, and Liz could see that her bad hip was bothering her today.

"Professor Sutton," she asked, a warning in her tone. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Professor Buckingham," Liz got out of the car and pulled Patricia Buckingham close, before whisper-shouting into her ear. "I have. . . a walk-in. . . Cammie and Zach were protecting her . . . well, sort of, I mean they were, but she didn't know that . . . she's a rogue Interpol asset who created a formula that can predict the fall of unstable regimes. . . of course it can also be used to bring them down. . .the men who took Cammie and Zach tried to get her, but I got her instead, and I promised we wouldn't hurt her." Liz paused for a moment, uncertain. "We're not going to hurt her, right?"

Patricia Buckingham sized Liz up for a moment, and Liz thought she was maybe a little impressed.

"I don't think there will be any need to harm Ms. . ."

"Solokov," Liz filled. "Elisa Solokov. I was hoping that Rachel and Joe could bring her in to the right person, but . . ."

"Rachel and Joe are not here," Patricia Buckingham said, calmly, "Due to certain recent events they've been called away."

"Is there any news?" Liz asked, worried. "I've been running models since it happened but I haven't found anything, and . . ."

"Ms. Baxter and Ms. McHenry have been leading an unauthorized rescue mission since twelve hours after Ms. Morgan and Mr. Goode disappeared."

"If anyone can find them, it's Bex and Macey." Liz was certain.

"I agree," Professor Buckingham responded. "Now let's see what we can do about your walk-in here." And then Professor Buckingham leaned into the car and led a very nervous, very fearful Elisa into the mansion.

* * *

 **AN: As you can probably guess, we're nearing the end of our story. I think I have three more chapters to share with you all. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you all for reading and for sharing your thoughts with me. I've been so enjoying writing for you, and reading your lovely reviews. So glad you've enjoyed the story :) See you Wednesday for the next installment.**


	24. Chapter 24

It took more time than I expected to find a phone, but by the time I reached the town, it was nearly nine o'clock, and whatever day of the week it was, the majority of the town's businesses were closed. Even the bar.

I ended up at the minister's house, banging on the door. It opened. I almost cried with relief.

"Hello, can I . . ."

"Do you have a phone?" I cut him off. "I need a phone. Right now."

"I . . ." the man who answered the door was in his early sixties, and was clearly unaccustomed to frantic evening visitors who didn't even introduce themselves before begging to use his telephone.

"We were hiking, and my husband was injured, and I had to leave him out there to go find help," I lied. It sounded so implausible, so I added "we were separated from the rest of our camping friends and both our cell phones were dead and. . ." I started to cry. "He's really hurt, can I just use your phone?"

The man sized me up for a moment, and then handed me a cordless telephone without inviting me inside. I dialed the emergency call-in number without pause. I knew this man probably thought I was a lunatic, but at that moment, I didn't care.

"It's Cammie Morgan," I half-shouted, urgent, when I heard the pick-up click at the end of the line.

A mechanical voice on the other end said "Voice authorized: Special Agent Cameron Morgan."

"Cammie?" I don't know who I expected to pick up the emergency call-in line, but it wasn't my Mother. When I'd called in the past, if I'd missed a check-in, I'd just recorded a message. I'd never spoken to an actual person. But there was my mother on the other end of the phone.

"Mom!" I cried. It was mostly involuntary. I'd been running for almost twenty-seven hours, fueled solely by adrenaline and panic. It would have been unreasonable to expect the most spy-like behavior on my part. I knew I shouldn't use any identifiers on an unsecured line, but I did anyway.

"Zach's really hurt," I said urgently, "We're in the big federal park in Northern Wisc. . ."

"We have Zach." My mother cut me off, and I was so relieved, I actually collapsed on the front steps. My legs crumpled, and I slid down to the ground. "The girls brought him in a few hours ago."

"Is he. . ."

"He's alive," she said, firmly. "It's a bit touch and go right now, sweetie," she tried to lessen the blow, but I knew she would never lie to me. "Zach is strong, he'll fight."

I started to cry, as I considered how hard he must have been fighting to make it through the past twenty-four hours. I finally allowed my brain to revisit the image I'd been carrying, of feverish, unconscious Zach, _my Zach_ , lying under that tree. It was even more horrible than I'd remembered.

"We have Liz and Elisa too," my mom said.

"Liz?"

"Mhm," my mom answered. "It's a long story. Your friends were heroes today, Cam."

She said that like it was unusual. I knew better. My friends had saved my life and the lives of those around me more times than I could count.

"We'll have a chopper to you in the next hour," she said. "I love you."

"I love you too, Mom," I cried. "I'm so sorry."

She was gone, and I sat on the front steps of the minister's house, tears streaming down my face, as the last bits of adrenaline drained from my blood.

The minister didn't ask me for any more details, but he brought me a plate of food, which I devoured in seconds. He quietly settled on the steps beside me.

"Your husband, he'll be okay?" he asked, finally.

"Yes," I smiled. "The rest of my family found him, they were able to get him to a hospital."

"Strange time of day to be out hiking," he muttered, but I let it go. I couldn't care less whether the man beside me knew too much. Maybe he was an enemy operative deep under cover. Maybe he was working with the people who'd taken us. Maybe one of them was in the back room, right now, waiting for me to arrive. Or maybe he was just a minister who realized my explanation did not hold any water. Zach was safe, and that was all that mattered.

I slept on the entire helicopter ride to Virginia, but my sleep was fitful. In my dreams, I watched Zach walk into the arctic prison. A creeping sense of dread fell over me, and I knew I might never see him again. When I woke, the dread lingered.

They tried to drag me from his bedside, but I couldn't be moved. I was debriefed right there, in the hospital wing at the Pentagon City field office. I learned that Liz had brought in Elisa. That Bex and Macey had disobeyed orders and rescued Zach. I drew sketches of the operatives I'd seen in the field. I recounted the death of the ponytail man, and our fight with the operatives in Chicago. I detailed my surveillance of Elisa. I spoke for hours, but it seemed like days.

Then I slept, despite the metal chair and the tick of machines, and Zach's all too unsteady breathing. I took hold of his hand, and for the first time in days, I slept.

He woke two days later.

"You're alive," he whispered, with a smile.

" _You're_ alive," I responded. I kissed his forehead and relief flooded through my veins.

"Not so fun from that side of the hospital bed, is it?" He croaked.

I laughed a little. "Don't you ever put me here again," I warned.

"Sorry," he whispered. Then he raised a hand slowly and pointed it at his chest. "Spy."

He was right, hospital visits and gunshot wounds were occupational hazards, and I'd been the one in that bed far too many times myself.

"We need to debrief Mr. Goode, now that he's awake." Of course Townsend was there, filling the room with his presence. If he was at all affected by his son's brush with death, he didn't show it. "Ms. Morgan, you need to leave."

I kissed Zach's forehead one more time and slipped into the hallway, settling at the base of the wall. If Townsend thought I was going any further, he was wrong, and I'd be happy to set him straight.

* * *

 **AN: To everyone who thought I'd kill Zach, hope you're feeling a little better now that everyone's been reunited :) Two more chapters left, and I think you'll enjoy both of them. Thanks again so much for joining me on this adventure. I've loved writing for you.**


	25. Chapter 25

"I heard he's awake," Bex called as she approached. I'd drifted off as I sat against the wall, and her voice roused me.

I didn't answer; I just pulled my friend close and breathed a sigh of relief.

"I heard you saved him."

"It's what I do," Bex shrugged. "I heard you ran 137 miles for help."

"It wouldn't have been fast enough," I said. I'd known it was true as I ran, but out there in wilderness, I couldn't dare admit it to myself. Now, having sat by Zach's bedside for the better part of three days, there was no denying that he would have died if Bex and Macey hadn't found him.

Bex couldn't argue. "He's alive," she said softly. "And you're alive. That's all that matters."

I didn't answer. She draped an arm around my shoulder, and I leaned into her. "Macey and Liz?" I asked.

"They're here, they're sleeping." I hadn't realized how late it was. My internal clock hadn't reset yet, and the lack of windows didn't help. "Your mom came the first night, after they debriefed you, but you were asleep and she didn't want to wake you up. None of us did. Mr. Solomon's here too, but he sat with Zach from the moment we brought him in until the moment you arrived, and I haven't seen him since."

It didn't surprise me. I was sure Joe Solomon was a wreck, and he wouldn't have wanted any of us to see him that way.

"Cammie," my Mother was there, and her arms wrapped around me, the relief apparent in her voice. She pulled back and held me at arm's length. "How are you, kiddo?"

"Zach's awake," I smiled. "So, much better."

Her hand brushed the swelling on the back of my head and I winced. "You have got to stop doing that," she scolded, as if I walked around every day just asking to be knocked unconscious.

She turned to Bex. "Rebecca, it appears you have quite a bit of explaining to do to a certain joint task force, so you had better come with me."

Bex grinned. "Well," she rolled her eyes. "That certain joint task force owes me quite a few favors, so I think they can wait a minute."

"Rebecca..." my mother warned.

"I will be right there," she huffed. She hugged me. "You tell Waffles that if he ever tries to pull anything like this again, I'll kill him."

I laughed. I waited. At long last, Agent Townsend appeared in the hallway. He looked irritated when he realized I hadn't moved. "Alright, Ms. Morgan, you can have him back now," he said, the annoyance apparent in his tone. I didn't waste a moment.

"Hey, Gallagher Girl," Zach called softly. He sounded weary, but just hearing his voice slowed my racing heart. A tear of relief slid down my cheek.

"None of that," he scolded, smiling up at me. "I heard you were pretty incredible out there."

I shook my head, arguing. "This was all my fault. I should have run in the first place." I admitted, for the first time, the thought that had been haunting me. "None of this would have even happened if I'd just gotten out of that apartment."

"That's crazy and you know it," he challenged. "They'd have gotten Elisa or the whole formula, or both. You and I are expendable."

I hated his words, but I knew they were true. I'd known they were true for a long time. To choose this life was to understand that you were likely, one day, to simply be collateral damage.

"Besides," he smiled. "No one has ever run 137 miles for me before."

"I had to," I shrugged. "So I did."

"I heard some operatives had to do quite a bit of explaining to a very confused minister when they picked you up in a helicopter."

I nodded, vaguely remembering.

He smirked as he continued. "About why you and your _husband_ were hiking in the Chequamegon-Nicolet after dark and without any provisions?"

I'll admit it, I blushed a little.

"Gallagher Girl, I may be on a lot of drugs right now, but I'm pretty sure you ran 137 miles to save my life and then called me your husband."

I blushed a little more.

"I think you should know that makes me very, very happy."

"The morphine probably helps," I quipped. Zach smirked and shook his head.

"Nothing like seeing your beautiful face." His eyes grew serious as he studied me. "I was so afraid I'd never see you again. I was so afraid I'd miss out on our future before it even started."

"Me too," I admitted. He took my hand, and the silence echoed around us. The joint knowledge that, no matter how hard we worked, war and death and pain and fear would always raise their ugly heads filled our thoughts. And we both knew that we would always be called to fight them.

That calling was more important than our own hopes, our own dreams, and our own loved ones. But it didn't mean we couldn't have any at all.

"Let's get married. Right now." The words surprised me as they fell past my lips, but I meant every one of them.

"Cam, you don't have to, not because of this. . ."

"I want to," I cut him off.

"Cammie, _no_ ," he said, forcefully . "You need to think about this. We are not getting married just because I almost died. We can wait, I am _totally fine_ with waiting."

"That's nice," I said. "But I'm not."

And so I got down on one knee, at the edge of his hospital bed and stared into the eyes that had held me like an anchor since the day we met.

"I have loved you for so long, Zach. We've already been through more torture and death and destruction than most people encounter in a lifetime (he snickered a little) and I'm reminded every day that we may not have that much time left. But whatever time we do have, I want to spend it married to you."

He smiled.

"Marry me, Zachary Goode?"

He paused for a moment, as if considering. "Yeah, okay," he said, finally. "I mean what man can turn down a proposal that includes words like torture, death and destruction?"

I smacked him on the shoulder.

"Ow, Cammie you know I am not just laying here for fun . . ." He protested.

"I also know for a fact that you were shot in the _leg_ ," I argued.

"Just get over here so I can kiss you."

So I did, and he drew me to him. And in all the years Zach had been kissing me, I don't think he'd ever kissed me quite like that. Happiness raced through me as I squeezed myself into the hospital bed beside him and rested my head on his shoulder.

I was home.

* * *

 **AN: One more chapter on Wednesday. Thank you all for spending the summer sharing this story with me. My personal life has been a bit crazy, and spending time writing for all of you has been a lovely break from the madness.**

 **I've been kind of casually working on an intermediate story, that would take place around the time Cammie graduates from Georgetown, and involve the (self-invented) Pakistan incident I reference so much in this story as the sort of turning point of Zammie's relationship. I don't know if anyone would be interested in reading it, as it would be a bit more Zammie in conflict with each other rather than the world. Anyway, if you'd like to read something like that, let me know, and maybe I'll start working on it a little more seriously.**

 **Thanks again for joining me, I hope you really liked this chapter.**


	26. Chapter 26

I expected Macey to throw a fit when I told her Zach and I would be getting married in the lobby of the Pentagon City field office that afternoon, but she didn't. Instead she smiled. "That's very you, Chameleon," she admitted. "And also very Zach."

Zach was on his feet by then, with the help of a cane, and the fire I was accustomed to seeing was back behind his eyes. We both wore our standard issue plain black Agency jackets. Liz secured two simple platinum bands from the mall above us. Macey spent more than an hour taming my hair and applying makeup, despite my protests. But as we stood on the black and white checkered floor that afternoon, with our friends and family beside us, all felt right.

One of Joe Solomon's aliases was ordained (the same one who'd married my parents many years ago) and agreed to do the honors.

"I try not to make a habit of predicting the future – it blinds you to your instincts, and more often than not, you're just wrong," Joe Solomon started. "But I've known both of you a long time, and I can't say that I'm surprised to be here today."

"I've always considered both of you a little bit mine," he admitted, more emotion in his voice than I would have expected. "And I'm very proud of the operatives and the people you've become," he smiled. "You've each managed to find the one person in the world I can consider your equal. It is my great honor to be the person who makes this partnership official."

I could have sworn I saw a tear hover in the corner Joe Solomon's eye, "Let's get on with this, then. Zach?"

Zach turned to me and took my hands in his. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen him look so happy.

"Gallagher Girl," he smiled. "You grabbed hold of my heart on a metro escalator twelve years ago, and you have never let it go. I'm yours, Cammie. I always have been, and I always will be yours. 'Til death do us part, and all of that."

Liz giggled a little.

"You've always seen me," I said, slowly, lost in the green of his eyes. "No matter where I've gone or what I've done . . . you've always found me, you've always seen me. You're loyal and brave - you're the bravest man I've ever known," I said, truthfully. "No offense to any present company."

I snuck a glance at Joe Solomon, who said quietly, "No argument here." I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Townsend move his head in a single, subtle nod.

"I don't think that I can ever really be complete without you," I continued. "I don't ever want to be without you." I laughed nervously. "So, 'til death do us part, and all of that."

"I love you Gallagher Girl," Zach said, an honest to goodness smile stretching across his face.

"I love you too, Zach."

He slid a simple platinum band over my left ring finger, and slid the other band over his. He played with it for an instant, as if he'd been waiting for that moment a long time.

The smile spread into a grin. He pressed his lips against my forehead.

"Cameron Morgan Goode," he whispered, for just me to hear. "God, I love the way that sounds."

He kissed me then, surrounded by our friends and our families. He dipped me in the middle of the Pentagon City field office lobby and kissed me.

And then he pulled me up and smirked at me with the boyish grin I'd fallen for so long ago.

"I always finish what I start."

* * *

 **AN: Thank you so much for joining me. I really hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'm working on a few ideas, so no promises, but you'll probably see me back here in the future. Thank you again for sticking around and sharing this with me.**

 **P.S. for the person who asked, "Waffles" is from GG5. Cam says she's sneaking out to the waffle bare, and Bex knowingly says something like "Tell your waffles hi for me."**

 **Thanks again for all your kind reviews, and for letting me scratch that writing itch. I've so enjoyed this.**


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